Sanctuary
by LediShae
Summary: AU, A wandering healer with his first apprentice travel the winter lands tending the wounded and ill, but their first unusual patient brings them more than a few surprises.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This was done as a prompt from livejournal inspired by **chimeradark **on Twins_x_Ratch on LJ. Please review!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly enough.

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><p>Sanctuary: Part One<p>

_Listen younglings, and listen well, for this is your only warning. Your creators told you the Nightwalkers had vanished, that there was nothing in the darkness that could hurt you. They were wrong. Long ago they walked the land, crimson as the bloody foreboding dawn, golden as the gentle evening sunset. They were merciless. These nightwalkers hunted as a pair, seeking their prey without remorse. They ravaged entire cities, and brought civilizations to their knees._

_Why not kill them, you ask? They were unkillable. One hundred thousand brave mechs tried, and all were slain with the pair's wicked laughter echoing through the darkness. Day or night, they were invincible. Finally, in an act of desperation, the Great Priest, Alpha Trion, sealed the pair away forever._

_Listen younglings, and listen well, for this is your only warning. The nightwalker pair was never killed, nor have they been heard of again. Yet, somewhere in the Darkling Forest where all the evils dwell is a sanctuary gilded in polished stone. Deep within that sanctuary from evil dwells its darkest minions waiting …_

Ratchet smirked as First Aid shuddered in the cool morning air, the younger healer drawing his earthen brown cloak tighter about his frame. "Cold?"

"No, sir." Aid replied skittishly, bright blue optics scanning the early morning misty forest warily "Just, last night, that old femme's story. It was creepy."

Ratchet laughed, not his harsh overworked bark that mechs normally heard, but the loud, long, face-splitting grin, laugh that had been missing since summer had ended. "Ha, Aid, that's a good one. My prized pupil is afraid of a nursery tale. Listen, I've been wandering these woods since I gained _my_ journeyman healer's rank. I've passed through nearly a hundred towns and villages, and in every one you'll hear a different version of the same story.

"This one said the Darkling Forest. Iacon Green near the Imperial City claims they're holed up in some golden cathedral beneath the Elite's Crystal Towers. It's a myth." Ratchet finished with a smirk, drawing his own dark green full healer's cloak about him to ward off the early chill.

"But," Aid looked around nervously, "There _are_ nightwalkers, right?" The youngster had come straight from the Imperial City, his family having some member or another in every major civil service within the city.

Ratchet pinned First Aid with a hard scowl, "Yes, they're real, and they're part of the reason why I travel the towns during winter." First Aid looked to his mentor, amazed once more that this brilliant, fearless and terrifying medic was only a couple vorns older than himself. Ratchet had a young face when he laughed, but when he snarled or frowned his plating changed, and seemed to make him twice his age with triple the intimidating bearing. Of course, Aid mused, given his parentage it was to be expected.

Aid finally nodded at Ratchet's words, the longer nights meant more time for the nightwalkers to hunt, and more time for fear to fester in the sparks of villages leading to brawls over nothing, sickness caused by the processors and starvation as cold weather mingled with the predations of the nightwalkers slowed trade to a crawl.

"Ratchet, how have you kept from getting killed?" Aid asked, suddenly afraid that he was walking with a nightwalker in disguise. Despite the older mech's creators both being master hunters with a reputation for their impressive weapons displays, Ratchet had inherited none of it.

"First, its daytime. While nightwalker's aren't killed by sunlight they're not fond of it." Ratchet looked at Aid somberly as the early rising sunlight kissed his pale face plating. "Second, the nightwalkers can't drink high grade. There's too much energy in the liquid and for them it's like drinking sunlight." Ratchet continued his glare not demeaning himself by reminding Aid of all the high grade he drunk the night before. "Third, well," Ratchet hedged momentarily, "I offer my services to _anyone_ in need, and that's brought me some night time patients willing to open their territory to me."

"You treat _mff-_!" Ratchet slammed First Aid's mouth shut, cutting off the loud yelp with his own cherry red dermal plating pressing hard against Aid's white face plates.

"Shhh! You twit, yes, I treat vampires. They pay better than the living and I only treat those who have given up killing to survive. There are a few, not many and I only treat those the others vouch for." Ratchet snarled in a whisper. "I'm not proud of it, but if the fuel suckers can provide the credits that allow me to treat the poor then it's worth damning my spark to the Unmaker for."

Ratchet finally released First Aid with a wordless snarl, the good mood from earlier lost. 'As usual' First Aid thought to himself as he rubbed his face tenderly. He had been traveling with Ratchet for the last season, having just gained his journeyman status that summer. Ratchet was the best healer known in Iacon Province, the best that the wealthy _could not_ buy. The older medic had been propositioned by every noble, elite and wealthy merchant from Kaon to Tarn and from Tyger Pax to Crystal Gorge. Yet no one could own him.

First Aid had begged, pleaded and done every iota of volunteer work, menial labor and 'favor' his instructors at Healers' Academy could throw at him just to be _mentioned _to the infamous Healer Ratchet for his Journeyman apprenticeship. Now, six weeks into a thirteen month trial First Aid was wondering if he shouldn't have listened to his eldest brother, Hot Spot, in the Imperial Fire Brigade and found a mentor within the city.

"First Aid!" Ratchet hollered from up the road, "If you can't keep up then go home."

The younger healer balked, then scowled angry that Ratchet would tell to give up so easily and angrier that he had been contemplating the same thing. "Ratchet?" Aid froze as he caught up to his mentor, "What's that?" One white hand pointed nervously to a bend in the road that hid the origins of the strange distortion in the air.

"Heat shimmer," Ratchet frowned and hustled to where the hazy distortion originated accompanied with the singing of overheated metal.

"Heat shimmer? But, its freezing!" Aid balked, not wanting to find out if this was just an overheated mech who had run all night from a nightwalker or a nightwalker suffering sun syndrome.

"I'm going to kill him." Ratchet huffed once he reached the fallen form and knelt turning the pale figure over to reveal the unconscious figure of a well dressed white mech, blackened patches along his light green tunic and crimson vest over his chest and torso telling of a lost fight with a more powerful mech and the beginning of rust eating into the wounds.

"Hey Ratch." The mech gasped as pale violet optics flickered in and out. "Miss me?"

"You slagging glitch." First Aid flinched back from the snarled roar as much from the color of the fallen mech's optics.

"They're violet – they're real." First Aid babbled feeling his vents hitch in terror. Only nightwalkers had violet optics. Only nightwalkers. The creatures his older brothers had taunted him with, claiming they were under his berth, waiting in the hall, in the darkened wash room at night. They had tortured him in their youngling days with countless terrifying pranks as they lunged from the darkness to nip at his neck.

"Of course they're real you little ninny! I told you I treated the less violent ones; now help me get him out of the sun before the rest of his plating blisters off." Ratchet yelled at Aid, pulling the soft sparked city youngster out of his processor loop.

First Aid rushed to help, conditioned by weeks of Ratchet's verbal abuses to jump first and ask how high or where later. Together they pulled the large white mech out of the sunlight to a nearby shaded clearing, laid the unconscious mech as close to the sheltering trees as possible and began cleaning the worst of the wounds.

"This is Wheeljack." Ratchet finally spoke once the worst of the wounds were taken care of. "He's –"

"Trying to create an alternative to drinking mech blood." Wheeljack interrupted. "Hey Ratch."

"You already said that." Ratchet glared at his friend, "Now, what happened?"

Wheeljack winced, flinching as he slowly sat up, his nightwalker systems already having repaired most of his wounds. "Uh, leading Decepticons away from the sanctuary?" Wheeljack flinched away as Ratchet cursed roundly.

"What's a Decepticon?" First Aid asked blankly.

"One of the Three Morons" Ratchet snarled gruffly. "Those of the Decepticon faith are warrior monks who have pledged to wipe the land clean of nightwalkers, destroy them to the last infected innocent."

"But you said there were Three Morons?" Aid goaded, wondering why he couldn't keep his vocal processors muted today.

"The other major sect is the Autobots, those who pursue the nightwalkers in order to become one." Ratchet shuddered.

"Or volunteer to be their companion" Wheeljack chimed in, looking from First Aid to Ratchet and back with a slowly growing smirk.

"Or that." Ratchet agreed in disgust.

"Companion?" Aid looked blankly between Ratchet and Wheeljack, wondering if he would be quizzed on this later.

Wheeljack nodded, "Companions volunteer as food sources for us. They get the finest energon we can afford, in trade we get to feed off of them. We do not hurt them, just transfer a little of their supply into our reservoir." First Aid blanched, quickly huddling his major lines from his knees to his neck under his cloak.

"The last are the Neutrals, they're not as bad as the Decepticons, but they're bad enough. They push for nightwalkers and mortals to live in harmony, live and let live and claim the day will come when we can all sit together and sing the hymns of Primus." Ratchet spat as he packed up his healer's kit, shouldering the hefty bag as he stood.

"But – you live with nightwalkers, sort of." Aid pointed out hesitantly. Wheeljack couldn't blame him, _he_ hesitated to piss Ratchet off unless if it was funny. Still the irony of a nightwalker fearing a – mostly – unarmed healer constantly amused Wheeljack.

Ratchet glared at his apprentice, Wheeljack howled with laughter until he was suddenly silenced by a wrench to the helm. "I treat non-lethal nightwalkers. I do _not_ propose to build a village next to the largest coven in Iacon and expect to have a trading partner!" Ratchet snarled once last time before standing smoothly, smoothing out his simple dark grey tunic and brown leggings unconsciously as he turned on the nightwalker. "Come on 'Jack, if you're well enough to be a pain in my aft then you're well enough to take us to Sentinel." Ratchet stood, shouldering his pack.

"Ratch, Sentinel was terminated last night by Cyclonus." Wheeljack spoke softly ear fins First Aid only now noticed flashing a somber orange in sorrow.

"Fraggit," Ratchet snarled, "Then, take me to your leader." First Aid and Wheeljack giggled.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I own nothing, sadly enough. (All my work is un-beta'd if anyone notices any glaring mistakes please let me know.)

I've seen authors on do this for _years_ and I finally get the chance. ^_^

Thank you to all my reviewers!

**LdyGossamer** : Thank you!

**Anodythe** : I aim to please, thanks for the confidence boost.

**Juzu **: I'm glad you like!

**PxJLoverKyoto** : ^.^ I wonder what other monsters I can throw in … having just vampires seems so – bland.

**MyNameIsJag** : Here is your next dose of happiness!

**Aqila3333** : You like him? Great!

**Katea-Nui **: *Grins* Here you go!

**ReveilleWolfie** : Glad I could come up with something new for you.

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><p>Sanctuary<p>

Part Two

First Aid watched Ratchet finish patching Wheeljack's injuries from the Decepticon attack, awed by Ratchet's skill. The famous myth that nightwalkers were invincible, able to regenerate from any wound was being proven wrong before his optics.

"Are you listening Aid?" Ratchet snapped from his ministrations as his breath misted in the cold air, "High grade, especially gelled high grade is the nightwalker version of sleep rust for mortals. One speck and they're hurting. Every injury must be checked and cleaned with clear solvent. They're systems will handle the rest."

"Boss? What if – " Aid fidgeted as he looked to Wheeljack's face plate nervously, "What if one tries to – you know," The younger medic rubbed his neck, just above his main energon line protectively.

"What if one of us bites you?" Wheeljack asked with a pained chuckle sitting up slightly. "It depends."

"Be quiet and lay down!" Ratchet snarled pushing Wheeljack back down, knowing full well that the masked mech was indulging him by acquiescing. "It depends on your systems. Some mechs succumb with the first bite, becoming more nightwalkers. More are enthralled, becoming spark-less minions of whoever bites them. Most just die and a rare few are immune."

"Immune?" Aid balked, "You mean nothing happens to them?"

"I mean that if the nightwalker is trying for a new childe or ghoul they'll be sorely disappointed. They'll either get a severely depleted mortal who will off-line from energon loss or they'll form a psychic connection to the mortal that becomes a master-slave connection. Normally, we never find out. Most nightwalkers feed to just the point of termination."

"Now can I take you to my leader?" Wheeljack asked with a chuckle, grateful that Ratchet had finally cleaned the lighter wounds once they had gotten into the safety of the deeper woods.

"Yes, you glitch." Ratchet groused, standing stiffly and glaring at the steadily rising sun.

"Come on!" Wheeljack leapt to his feet, grabbing Ratchet's hand nearly skipping across the snow to the deepest shadows of the forest leaving First Aid to scramble to keep up following after.

"But you're injured!" Aid gasped thinking on the deep burns that had littered the other white mech's chest, his feet sliding in the slush left by their heated frames.

Jack spun around flashing the smooth metal of his chest plating underneath his open vest and tunic. "What injuries?" Violet optics flashed merrily over the solid faceplate. Aid stumbled, the wounds were gone, and not a scar or blemish remained. Aid stared until he could finally goad his pedes into following. So this was the power of the nightwalkers.

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><p>The sanctuary was beautiful. Ancient stones polished to a burnished gold by the passing ages glowed a warm ruddy hue in the frigid midday sunlight. All around the massive wall mechs stood guard duty in the sun or performed duties outside the great stone wall surrounding the inner keep.<p>

"This is amazing." First Aid murmured in awe as they approached. Behind him Ratchet and Wheeljack bickered back and forth sounding more like an old bonded couple as time went by. Since finding Wheeljack early that morning First Aid had completely forgotten that 'Jack was a nightwalker. The strange alchemist turned inventor seemed harmless, his easy banter and humorous ability to get under Ratchet's plating making the trek to Wheeljack's home enjoyable.

"Glad you like it." Wheeljack finally responded, winning the latest round of snarking while Ratchet grumbled under his breath.

"Halt!" Ratchet froze stunned that one of the guards would actually stop Wheeljack from entering his own home. A blue mech ran up to Jack, blue optics trained on the blackened scorch marks littering the once white shirt. "You're not hurt?"

"I've got a nightwalker healer, Blue. I told you I'd be fine." Jack traced a hand carefully over the younger grey mech's face tenderly.

"Wheeljack," A disturbingly monotonal voice spoke from the deepest shadows of the entry gate. "Why have you brought mortals?" Ratchet looked to the dark silhouette, noting the cold violet optics that bore into his own. Ratchet twitched, the nightwalker was new. And, he barely kept himself from grumbling, new nightwalkers meant explanations.

Wheeljack gestured to the mortals behind him, "Sorry Prowl, this is my big brother, Ratchet."

"B-b-brother? But, Jack you never told me you had a family. How can your brother be mortal and you not or were you bitten?" Blue asked hurriedly before being hushed by the smooth voice Prowl.

"You have a mortal brother?" The figure asked, monotonal voice oozing disdain.

"Uh, well –"

"He's adopted. My creators took him when we found him after a raid on a nightwalker coven. They thought his maker was one of those slain but he didn't revert. So we kept him."

"Hey! I wasn't some pet!" 'Jack cried as Ratchet smirked.

"You are a slayer?" Prowl asked Ratchet making Wheeljack break into peals of laughter.

"No, I'm a healer." Ratchet snapped, tugging at his cloak with its red medic's crosses embroidered into its shoulders for emphasis as if the black and white nightwalker before him were lacking processing capacity.

"Bluestreak, give the healer a room." Prowl commanded softly as he turned, vanishing mid-step into nothing.

"The new leader?" Ratchet asked 'Jack flatly, completely unimpressed with the smaller mech as they walked.

"Yeah, he's good to us, Ratch. I saw Sentinel fall and I could only lead Cyclonus away. He – he's made a new unit called Sweeps. They're worse than most Decepticons." Wheeljack paused in front of a massive set of double doors and nodded his head towards them. "We've got wounded."

Ratchet paused mid step behind Bluestreak, ignoring their guide chatting with his assistant, "And you're just now telling me? Aid!" He stormed towards the massive doors, pushing through brusquely with Aid trotting at his heels.

The room was filled with injured and dying mechs. Nightwalkers darkened towards black while mortal mechs coughed and wheezed or lay with darkened optics as their plating slowly grayed. Several mechs moved through the room offering words of comfort and sips of energon trying to relieve the agony of their friends.

"You know the drill." Ratchet nodded to the mortals lined against the far wall basking in the fading sunlight. Aid nodded, moving to help those he could. Ratchet turned to the nightwalkers, once more wondering if he was damning himself to the Unmaker for aiding those who fed on his own kind. It was an old mental battle he had fought since his creators had adopted a much smaller and younger Wheeljack long ago.

Shrugging off what he couldn't change Ratchet moved to the darkest of the nightwalker forms, noting the many high grade burns and holy water marks. These 'Sweeps' were playing dirty. Ratchet frowned as he worked, grateful when Wheeljack appeared at his side to sooth the terrified nightwalker under his hands.

"No! No, not more! Decepticon!" A massive black nightwalker cried as he desperately struggled to escape from Ratchet, barely able to move his arms from critical wounds piercing his shoulders and chest.

Wheeljack pulled the struggling nightwalker into his arms, murmuring soothingly into his audios, "Trailbreaker, c'mon, it's okay. This is Ratchet he'll make you better, you remember me telling you about him, right?"

Trailbreaker's optics tracked from Ratchet's face to 'Jack's flashing vocal indicators, slowly relaxing as the other nightwalker's words filtered into his processors through the painful haze. Finally able to do his work, Ratchet moved swiftly over wounds cleaning what he could so the nightwalker's repair systems could function properly.

"How are you providing for their energon needs?" Ratchet asked brusquely.

"Volunteer companions." Wheeljack caught Ratchet's gaze, directing him to the front entrance. Several mechs had cued up, all letting their lines be tapped giving their own vital fluids to their wounded protectors. Some wore the red crest of the Autobots, a few with the white crest of the Neutrals, others wore no crest at all, only a simple badge upon their breast sporting a simple brass arch representing their loyalty to the sanctuary. Ratchet shuddered and turned back to his work. He wanted to be in a berth before dawn.

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><p>Aid sighed wearily, finally collapsing into a cot near his patients. The normal mechs he had tended were all stable, and hopefully Ratchet would get some rest before the sun rose. He huffed a silent laugh, one day ago he had been trembling in fear from a bedtime story, wondering if the mythological nightwalkers might actually be real. Now, he knew they were. Cycling into recharge, Aid let darkness envelop him as a remembered voice followed him into his dreams. <em>Listen younglings, and listen well, for this is your only warning…<em>

Ratchet scrubbed a weary hand over his optics, wishing that darkness still reigned beyond the keep's windows. A new day had dawned, and since he was here he might as well check over the rest of the inhabitants.

"Ya must be the doc bot Prowl was goin' on 'bout." A voice pulled Ratchet from his musings. Looking up the healer found himself face to face with a visored mech, smaller than him and dressed smartly almost like a noble. "M'name's Jazz. You've done us a big service, keepin' ours functionin' despite bein' what they are." The mech nodded to the now empty corridor that had housed their injured nightwalkers.

"Jazz," Ratchet looked the smaller mech over calmly, noting several deep scrapes along his chassis coming too close to comfort to his neck cabling. "Sit down, that needs tending. 'Jack vouched for Prowl, if he says I can trust a nightwalker its good as iridium crystal."

"Blue's taken with ya as well, likes knowin' who his lover's big brother is." Jazz smiled as Ratchet stopped his cleaning, to pierce the visor with his hard, crystal glare.

"Lover?"

Jazz gulped nervously at the hard glare, suddenly understanding 'Jack's adage of never pissing off a healer, especially if that healer is Ratchet. "Yeah, they took up last winter. Blue had just escaped his entire village's destruction. He used to live in Steeldale."

"Slag, that was our next stop." Ratchet thought back to the quaint village in a quaint, pristine valley. It had been fine early last spring, now it was gone. "Why don't I remember him?" Ratchet scanned his memory, looking for one reference to the youngling. He made sure to meet every member of each community he served, tried to know the major myths of each town, what to say and what not speak of. Yet this one mech he knew nothing of, much like most mechs in this strange sanctuary his brother called home.

"He lived in the forest beyond the town. If he had any family he's never spoken of them." Jazz kept still on the table, unnerved at the stern glare Ratchet possessed. He had faced down Decepticon Sweeps, hungry nightwalkers and imperial soldiers out for mechblood. Each time he had stayed cool and lived to tell about it. In this encounter he wondered if he would come out unscathed. The healer's optics shone with a burning ferocity found in turbo-wolves, yet his deft skill with his hands made him a mortal to be reckoned with.

"I need to go through that town, pay my respects." Ratchet replied standing up from where he had bent over Jazz's repairs. "Stay put a few moments for the welds to harden."

"Thanks, Ratchet. Listen, Prowl wanted me ta speak with ya, we wanna repay ya for services rendered, what can we do?" Jazz asked earnestly, honestly wanting to help their savior.

"My assistant needs rest and a few rations of energon, I could do with a wash and I need to know how to get to the main road without alerting any Decepticons in the area where we came from. You're new here as well, aren't you?" Ratchet asked with a frown, thinking back almost four years ago when he had last visited Goldstone Sanctuary his brother had run to. The place had sheltered the massive nightwalker Sentinel, a small handful of nightwalkers willing to cease hunting and two-dozen or so Neutrals. The place had grown since then.

"Yeah, me an' Prowl wandered here three years ago. A lot o' nightwalkers want peace, an' more mortals are willin' ta live with nightwalkers providin' they aren't on the menu." Jazz looked to a darkened corner of the room, "Prowl is everythin' ta me."

Ratchet nodded while making himself not gag. He hated this part of his job. The mechs and femmes he treated invariably decided he made a great priest to tell their lives to. Those professing their love were the worst. Listening to them spouting, hinting or drooling over their loves irritated him. He had his work, his traveling, his occasional flings when he wasn't playing creator to a journeyman healer.

"Congratulations. Oh, and I need to look over all your mechs, mortal and nightwalker. I'm not leaving a minor injury to fester."

Jazz smiled into the early morning light filtering dimly through the window, "Ya'll have it, all o' it. 'Jack told me 'bout ya once, said he had a terrifying big brother. I thought you'd be a nightwalker." Ratchet only snorted.

"Sorry to disappoint."

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><p>First Aid awoke to weak streaming sunlight in the first light of dawn. The soft murmur of voices reminded him that he was in the – sanctuary. He paused, booting up his optics. Did this place have a name?<p>

"Good morning, Aid." Ratchet looked down with a tired smirk. "The nightwalkers are all looked over. You get the mechs. Wake me at noon." The older mech managed settle on the cot and pass out with a professional air, intimidating and caring all at once.

"Thank Primus he's finally asleep." Wheeljack sighed, leaning against a wall near their cots. "I always thought he'd calm down after I left. He hasn't changed a bit." The inventor smiled slightly at his sleeping brother. "Take care of him for me?"

"Uh, yeah" Aid swallowed, suddenly reminded that he was in a stone keep full of nightwalkers. "I'll keep an optic on him." Aid managed to stumble out of his cot, white hands pin wheeling in the air to keep his balance.

"Careful, mech. Ratchet needs ya in one piece." Jazz grinned, bright blue visor gleaming merrily as he easily stabilized the younger medic.

"Thanks," Aid grabbed his pack deftly, casting a glance at his recharging mentor wondering how the older mech managed to maintain his reserved grace even after a full day and night on his pedes. Turning, he moved to the main hall, and the line of chatting mechs waiting for checkups.

"How many mechs live here?" Aid asked Jazz suspiciously.

"We number two hundred mortals, near that many nightwalkers."

"Then why am I taking care of only sixty mechs?" Aid gestured to the cue, frustration building as he already knew the answer.

"I forced him to get some recharge." Wheeljack spoke from behind the group with a victorious smile.

"Meanin' that ration ya so generously gave your big bro was drugged." Jazz chuckled at Aid's scandalized expression. "Don' worry kid, 'Jack's handled Ratchet before."

"I'll get to work then." Aid summoned his first patient. "Wait," He pulled Jazz from going, "What is this place called?"

"Goldstone Sanctuary, First Aid, when you leave here you have to forget this place. No one knows it exists, we're a rumor, just a myth." Jazz warned, holding First Aid's gaze with his own until the younger mech nodded. "Good, we have a lot of good mechs here just looking for safety."

"I understand," Aid nodded somberly as he turned to work.

Wheeljack looked at Jazz, violet optics worried. "We need to tell them."

"I will do so. Your brother cannot be allowed to wander into a trap." Prowl spoke from Jazz's side, appearing out of thin air. "The Decepticons will take advantage of him, and his apprentice if they can." Prowl led Jazz and Wheeljack away from the sundrenched corridor to the dark inner courtyard. "Wheeljack, we need Bluestreak to tell them what happened. They need to know what they're getting into." 'Jack nodded worriedly, waiting impatiently for noon and for Ratchet to wake up.

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><p>"You sorry glitch!" Ratchet's bellow and the resounding clang of a wrench against a helm filled the followed by Wheeljack's pained yelp. "What the slag were you thinking!"<p>

"But Ratch, you were always telling our creators not to overwork themselves. I'm just worried about you." 'Jack protested, backing out of the temporary healer sleeping quarters attempting to placate his brother.

Face set in a furious scowl, Ratchet waggled a wrench threateningly at his brother. "Don't pull that slag on me. I've worked longer hours with you cackling over my efforts too often before to fall for your load."

"He drugged you on my request." Prowl placed a restraining hand on Ratchet's wrist.

"Don't –" Wheeljack cringed as Ratchet slipped from Prowl's grasp, bringing his wrench down solidly on Prowl's helm.

"My only rule is don't frag a healer off!" Ratchet stormed from Prowl who stared after him in shock clutching his helm.

"A mortal just hit me." Prowl spoke dazedly.

"He grows on you." Wheeljack chuckled, "Take it as a sign of affection."

Ratchet stormed from the sanctuary leaders, finding First Aid in a grand hall chatting with the young bot Bluestreak. "Aid, how were your patients?"

"They're all fine sir, I've kept my reports." He passed a journal to Ratchet, waiting nervously as his mentor leafed through the records.

"Good job, Aid." Ratchet nodded his approval. Aid ducked his abashed thanks, proud to have finally earned his mentor's approval. "Bluestreak has gathered supplies for us for a few more days. We can leave whenever you want."

"Tomorrow, we leave in the morning. Bluestreak, come with me." Ratchet turned, leaving his waiting lunch and apprentice alone in the long hallway. Ratchet led Bluestreak to a quiet room before abruptly turning on the smaller bot, grabbing the mech's jaw in a steely grip and glaring down into the younger mech's optics.

Bluestreak froze, letting Ratchet turn his head this way and that, staring into his optics before releasing his chin. "You're with Wheeljack?"

"Yes, sir, he found me after the attack last winter. It was bad, I don't remember much." Blue shifted as he spoke, continuing his dialogue and keeping Ratchet from seeing Prowl, Jazz, 'Jack and First Aid file into the room behind them. "I was afraid of everyone, especially mortals. The Decepticons had wiped out the village. The passing nightwalkers had killed a few, but not like them." The youth shuddered, "Never, the nightwalkers were scary, especially in winter but they only took a few of us. It was -" Bluestreak finally quieted himself with one last shudder.

"Just don't break his spark. He may be a nightwalker and an idiot, but he's still my brother." Ratchet warned, somehow unwilling to hurl his normal venom at the youngling who held such dark fear behind his bright optics.

"Aww, Ratch I didn't know you cared." Jack spoke from behind his brother, startling an oath from Ratchet while ducking his surprised swing. "Ratch, Ratch! Calm down, it's me."

"Jack, this had better be good." Ratchet warned.

"It is, but first you need to quit terrorizing my lover." Jack drew Blue close, sheltering the smaller mech from Ratchet. "Steeldale wasn't abandoned after it was destroyed. The Decepticons destroyed it to make it their own. It's now Coldsteel Garrison. Cyclonus heads the garrison, under the command of a fanatic named Megatron. Stay away from them."

"Ratchet, supplies and payment are on your cot. When you leave we will have a four mech team following you. Two nightwalkers, two mortals," Prowl looked at Ratchet earnestly, "You will not see them, but until you are safely out of the Decepticon's path, they will watch over you."

Ratchet nodded, "Understood. Jack, send this to our creators." He handed a thick letter to his brother sealed with the crimson seal of a healer complete with white crosses. "I promised them I'd write if I found myself in trouble. This counts as trouble."

Wheeljack nodded, "Carrier's last letter said Creator was anxious to see my new home, make sure I was being treated right by my 'lord'. Maybe they'll visit?"

"I miss them too, just send the letter, we'll worry about them later." Ratchet sighed and looked out a nearby window. The shortened winter day was already edging towards darkness.

* * *

><p>Ratchet and Aid took their leave before first light the next morning, departing with refilled supplies and thicker under cloaks to block the deepening winter chill. The heavy clouds overhead darkened as dawn progressed, dropping thick, fluffy snowflakes within the first hour that worsened steadily until barely becoming a snowstorm.<p>

"Where are we?" Aid asked yelling over the screaming wind as they trudged through hip deep snow. The two days they had tended to the denizens of the sanctuary had been sunny, chilly and perfect. Now, half a day's journey out from the nightwalker stronghold they were bombarded with snow, the thick flakes pelting them and sticking to their frames in a freezing blanket.

"Two more klicks to the next town." Ratchet called above the wind, his voice stolen with the keening cry of the elements.

"How can you tell –" Aid's voice cut off as a booming clap of thunder echoed overhead.

"Fraggit!" Ratchet snarled as they hunkered low, "Thunder snow, if we stay out here we'll become mobile lighting rods!" Fear goading them through the thick snow the pair ran through the painful cold. Behind them echoing like the avenging hosts of Primus roaring thunder claps followed at their pedes. Sensing movement Aid glanced behind him seeing several dark figures riding metallic stallions with glowing crimson optics.

"Ratchet!" Aid barely got his mentor's name from his freezing lips when pain sent him crashing into darkened nothingness.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I own nothing, sadly enough. This chapter has violence, torture, near interfacing, vampiric feeding, and disturbing imagery, you have been warned.

Thanks to all my reviewers! I'm getting so many I don't know what to do with myself. ^.^

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><p>Sanctuary – Part Three<p>

_Listen youngling, and listen well, my carrier told me long ago, for this is your only warning. Long ago they walked the land, crimson as the bloody foreboding dawn, golden as the gentle evening sunset. They were merciless in their gluttony, relentless in sating their lust; bringing entire civilizations to their knees. In an act of desperation, the Great Priest, Alpha Trion, sealed the pair away forever within the Cathedral of Light …_

Agony blossomed across Ratchet's helm, dragging him forcibly and unwillingly from the floating blackness of unconsciousness. With the encompassing agony came the cold along his back of lying on snow, and the too loud crunching of pedes marching nearby.

"This him?" A deep voice pounded into Ratchet's aching processors. Gravelly and cruel the voice chilled his spark, making Ratchet fear for First Aid.

"Yes, General Cyclonus, the healer Ratchet." A flat voice replied seeming devoid of any emotion.

"I asked for him here to tend to our troops, not incapacitated." Cyclonus warned, several pedes shifting uncomfortably in the frigid air.

"Unavoidable, the storm forced the decision." The same stilted voice replied unapologetically, a tendril of pleased cruelty underlying the words.

"Very well Soundwave, dismissed." The voice belonging to Cyclonus commanded coolly allowing all others to leave. As the many footsteps faded Ratchet was jostled as the litter he lay on was raised into the air and moved into sheltering warmth. Despite the heat melting into his chilled form the warmth could not ease his nerves. No one had mentioned his apprentice.

With a groan Ratchet opened his optics, feigning a greater disorientation than he really felt. Sharp optics raked over the room, kept dim to hide his awareness he scrutinized the elaborate room he rested in. Despite the cold the berth he lay on seemed so comfortable.

"Where?" Ratchet wheezed, wondering just what had happened to him while unconscious.

"I apologize for the rough treatment," the purple mech, Cyclonus, apologized blandly once Ratchet looked to him. "With the oncoming snow storm my mechs erred on the side of expediency."

"Where – where am I?" Ratchet sat up slowly, despite his caution pain lit up every nerve cluster, every servo in his frame aching. Patches of his tunic and shirt were frozen to his plating. Melting swaths allowed moisture to slide along his plating like icy slugs dragging themselves along his spinal array in icy wet kisses.

Repulsed and startled he shuddered jostling already achy circuits, making his vision cloud over and blacken from sudden agony. He felt bruised all over, and his helm felt six sizes too small for his processors while his lines refused to thaw. He was freezing and burning, while the world swam before his painfully prickling optics.

"Welcome, to Coldsteel Garrison." Ratchet's tanks churned at the other's serpentine smile. "I have troops that require your services."

With a feral growl that belied his pained state Ratchet snarled, "What troops?"

"Follow me." Cyclonus beckoned, forcing Ratchet to stand on wobbly legs and leading him from the tent to the ruins of Steeldale. There was nothing left of the quaint village that had once graced the rolling hills. Blackened ruins poked out from thick, neglected drifts of snow like childhood memories left broken on a battlefield. A dark angry portion of Ratchet was turning on the taller Decepticon, pounding the professionally harsh and grim faceplates into a thick metallic smear.

"My soldiers are in here." Ratchet pulled his processors from their wandering. They were in the village chapel, once stately pews long since burned for firewood. Mechs now littered the floor, six long rows stretching along the chapel floor.

"These are battle wounds, not from a nightwalker or other fiend. There are no armies here." Ratchet stared Cyclonus down, wanting answers.

"We are here, apparently your information is wrong." Again that smug purr of a voice taunted Ratchet and once more the dark voice in his spark urged him to make the slagger _hurt_.

Gritting his denta and forcing images of ripping the slagger into basic components from his processors Ratchet turned to the many wounded, noting a complete lack of unit medics. "You did not bring medics of your own?"

Cyclonus grinned darkly, "They are tending our _guests_. My men are your only concern." Nodding victoriously Cyclonus turned from the chapel, vanishing into the thick drifting snow once more falling beyond the sheltering walls of the chapel.

"If you've killed First Aid the darkling races will be the least of your worries." Ratchet snarled under his breath, noting the dozen guards flanking the chapel walls. Then he saw the _decorations_ between the guards. Dim blue optics of Autobot prisoners gazed from the mechs and femmes hanging by their thumb servos. Resetting his optics in the vain hope that the horrid image was but an illusion, Ratchet on lined his optics once again.

It was no illusion. The Autobots were gagged, strips of cloths tied around their necks like beast collars marked them as slaves. Then Ratchet noticed how the mechs were displayed. The wounded Decepticons could easily gaze at any wall and proudly watch the slow agony of their prisoners brought closer to termination. The decorations were rewards.

With a shudder Ratchet pulled himself straighter, ignoring the steady ache that had yet to leave his frame or processors. Picking a soldier that was closest Ratchet marched up to the black mech. "Soldier! Grab two others, I need assistants if I'm going to keep your comrades alive and you've been promoted. Get me water, cleanser, cloths, pressure wraps and whatever medical supplies you can scrounge."

"Healer, we are to guard all wounded and observe." The soldier replied stiffly, unstable cruelty shining within his red optics.

"Then you will observe them offline!" A red hand slammed the soldier into the stone wall hard enough to dent metal as he yelled into the soldier's face, "Is that what you want?" Despite the harsh treatment the soldier only smiled, a small, disturbingly _gleeful_ smile that terrified Ratchet more than any beast or mech ever had before.

"We'll help, sir." A voice pulled Ratchet from his assault on the soldier. Turning he met the golden gaze of a soldier with a noble face, blue and white plating pristine and sleek beneath the trim uniform. "Unit commander Mirage, my team will assist." Grunting, Ratchet ignored the dented guard, willing to leave the healthy alone so long as they either stayed out of his way or did what he told them to.

Mirage and three others moved at Ratchet's command, helping him as nurses would have in the hospital by the teaching academy in the Imperial City. They moved in almost complete silence, yet something felt off about them. Ratchet moving from pallet to pallet along the floor treating the worst and moving up the mental cue he didn't have the time to delve into his unease. Given his surroundings he wasn't sure if he wanted to. He didn't know how long it would take, but soon, he would have to try to escape and find out what happened to First Aid.

Despite knowing that the mechs beneath his hands had killed his friends and destroyed their village Ratchet found his healer's protocols coming to the fore. Wounds came and went blurring until he could no longer tell which mech belonged to which injury. His internal memory banks would record the major details, and later he would transcribe his records.

Outside the morning brightened and the evening darkened, orders were given without thinking to his recruited assistants until strong deft hands were guiding him from where he knelt at his latest patient. "Enough medic, time to rest." Exhausted blue optics focused on the light grey face above his, dark green hands carefully pushing Ratchet to sit.

"Who?"

"I'm Hound." The mech smiled, blue optics twinkling with concern "You've been at our wounded all day. Rest, they'll be right as rain soon enough." Ratchet looked over the medical room, his processors filling in the reports on the mechs he had seen to. The worst had been tended to. Those with lighter injuries were treated by the mechs Mirage had brought to be his assistants. Exhaustion coursing through his systems Ratchet leaned back, letting his systems cycle into recharge as a lonely metallic howl echoed in the deepening night.

Vaguely aware of Hound kneeling beside him Ratchet could barely recognize the green mech's voice, focusing on the words he would try to understand later. "The journeyman is with friends."

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><p>Crimson dawn, birdsong, and the stale reek of unwashed mech and dried fluids assaulted Ratchet's senses, pulling him into consciousness. Gagging slightly from the stench and bitter taste in the back of his throat Ratchet forced himself up. He was still in the chapel; his patients were tended by two Decepticon medics that moved with cold efficiency from patient to patient. No one looked at him, Mirage, Hound and the two others who had aided them were nowhere to be seen.<p>

Shrugging, Ratchet stood, staggering from neglected systems and untreated helm damage. The injuries were minor, self repair would be complete shortly, provided he could find a ration. He scanned the soldiers on the floor, blocking out the hanging Autobots begging for recourse. He was a prisoner as much as they. With one last pleading glance of apology Ratchet turned from the stagnant room.

Outside where a crimson dawn slowly light the sky a strange sense of unease filled his lines. Decepticon soldiers and priests marched through the garrison, their altered optics sharing the same violent crimson as the dawn. Purple sigils graced every breast, red optics shone from every face. All signs that these mechs had converted to the Decepticon faith, taking the implants to their optics that allowed them to distinguish between the heated systems of mortals and the chilled ones of the nightwalkers.

"Healer, you are not approved to leave the premises." Ratchet snarled under his breath as the same soldier from the previous day approached. That same unbalanced smile played along the mech's lip plates, the same terror raced through Ratchet's lines.

"Do you have bathing facilities or do you want to smell me all day?" Ratchet looked the other mech in the optics, attempting to hide his fear.

"Runamuck, take our guest to the keep. Ensure he is taken care of." Cyconus appeared at Ratchet's side, indicating the stone keep that served as officers' quarters and mess hall at the far end of the village. The black guard saluted, shoving Ratchet before him. They moved swiftly through the compound, passing ranks of tents and abandoned houses repurposed for the families of the troops who had chosen to follow after. The small village had become a Decepticon military fort in the span of a year.

Ratchet let his optics rake over the camp noting the overall health and number of troops. The camp was well maintained. Commanders put their troops through maneuvers while civilian Decepticons worked to restore the village to its former beauty. As they approached the keep Ratchet noticed a strange forest of poles dotting the old courtyard. There, he finally realized, the entire village hung by their wrists. Optics blindfolded, gagged, and gray the hollow husks remained motionless regardless of the breeze that stirred amongst them.

Shuttering his optics, Ratchet shuddered in rage and agony. These pitiful gray forms had been his friends. What had at first seemed like dozens were actually over one hundred villagers from tiniest protoform to eldest ancient. Ratchet could only feel all consuming guilt as he silently rejoiced that First Aid and Wheeljack were not among the forms hanging from those poles.

"Hurry it up," Runamuck shoved Ratchet harshly, "You can admire our handiwork later." There was a sick, proud grin in that gloating sneer, one that Ratchet wanted to forcibly wipe off the taller mech's face with a dull scalpel and all pain receptors set to their highest setting. Instead he could only trudge to the keep for the bath and energon his frame so desperately needed.

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><p>Clean. Ratchet could not remember the last time he had felt this clean. His plating tingled from the warm wash and wax, and yet he was torn with guilt and shame. He had been given Steeldale's special energon brew, their winter blend held for the winter solstice celebration. He had used Lady Firestar's favorite cleanser, and Lord Lightspeed's wax. He had been pampered with the belongings of the dead. Of all the trappings of this lost village.<p>

Was this how Wheeljack felt those terrible times when hunger had taken over and forced him to feed to the point of death? This painful guilt and sickening shame that came with the realization that he had allowed this to happen. Ratchet should have stayed closer to the villages, should have listened to the summer rumors of bad things in Darkling Woods.

"_Stay in the keep, I will return you to the chapel in two hours."_ Runamuck had sneered those words, as if expecting Ratchet to have a tryst between his shower and ration and not wanting to bear witness to it. Ratchet snorted in disdain and turned to walk the halls. He had to get out of Coldsteel, and so far he was nowhere near escaping.

His pedes took him through the keep finding himself retracing his last visit. The grand ballroom had been filled with dancing. Back rooms curtained off and screened had seen many trysts. Trysts that would have resulted in sparklings for him to tend to this trip. It was a cycle he didn't mind. Celebrating in winter to come back and tend to the consequences of having too much fun.

Ratchet had been enjoying his winter brew and gossip with the older and more grounded elders too much to accept any of the advances the village femmes and young mechs had given him. Now, he could only endure the memories.

"_Ratch't! Ratch't!" The tiny youngling Wheelie called as he toddled into Ratchet's grasp. "Come play!" _Wheelie's frame had hung with his creators in the courtyard. The entire ruling family was terminated.

"_Ratchet! Come see, we found treasure." Outback and Longhaul ran up to him, optics shinning in youthful exuberance. Ratchet followed the younglings only a year out from their final upgrades. _Ratchet scrubbed a hand over his face plating. He had scheduled those lads for their upgrades this winter, should have done it yesterday so that they could join the solstice celebration with the adults, and taste their first halting attempts at passion. Several young femmes were scheduled for their upgrades as well, scheduled before the lads, giving the young mechs something to look forward to.

"Healer!" Ratchet started, finding himself before the royal chambers. "Time for work." A white mech identical to Runamuck marched smartly up to Ratchet, looking down into the smaller healer's blue optics with fiendish cruelty burning with lust. "I get to watch today."

Ratchet suppressed a shudder, this one was crazy too. Only this one sought to take his pleasure in Ratchet's forced pain. "Lead the way." While his voice stayed a steady deadpan Ratchet's insides were churning with terror. The warm bath, the comforting wax, the revitalizing energon – all of it felt as if Ratchet had bathed in and fed on ashes, covering himself in the filth that oozed from the pure white soldier like a plume of stench.

Ratchet once more found himself in the chapel, tending to soldiers that spat on him as soon as they could stand. Medics moved around him, barely fixing anything before they ignored a festering wound to fawn over any mech of rank. This place sickened Ratchet. He glanced outside to the midday darkness. The old adage from long ago floated through his processors as he worked on one of the last remaining patients, "Red at morning Hunters take warning, red at night hunter's delight."

Whatever terrible weather that omen predicted would be upon them soon, Ratchet could feel it in the heavy air that lay still over the garrison like a shroud.

"Healer, my medics can tend to the rest here. There are more soldiers that need your skills." Cyclonus spoke from Ratchet's side, making the healer flinch at the other's silent approach.

"Fraggit, make some noise!" Ratchet snarled at Cyclonus, moving fluidly from crouching over his patient to staring the taller general down fast enough to make the purple mech reach for his sheathed fighting dagger.

"Take the right corridor." Cyclonus commanded calmly, goading Ratchet with a superior smirk.

Grumbling under his breath the healer shouldered his kit and a large bin of spare parts then turned down the indicated hallway moving past silent rooms that emanated the sour stench of death. He refused to look into the darkened rooms, refused to discover more innocents beyond his aid.

Midway down the corridor a massive door painted to match the hall perfectly creaked open at his approach. Just as he reached the door, Ratchet froze; he did not want to go in there. Fear told him to flee; self preserving terror goaded him to run back to Cyclonus and Runamuck that he would be safer with the Decepticons than in that room. An unnatural chill emanated from the darkened room, forming cold condensation on his sensitive plating along his hands and pooling between his fingers to drip with a startlingly loud _plop_ onto the wet floor.

Ratchet took a step back, the floor was dry, had been as he walked along. Now, as if summoned by a dryad or nymph water coated the floor in a fine mist, seeping into every pore of the frigid stone floor. "Fraggit! My brother is a nightwalker and I'm afraid of cold room and a little water." Ratchet snorted, screwing his courage back in place before striding purposefully into the dark room. Deft fingers took flint and steel to a tuft of tinder, lighting surprisingly dry wall sconces and bringing a warm fire in the hearth to life. With enough light for his needs Ratchet turned to the rest of the room.

Beauty was something Ratchet had never held much stock in. He knew he was less than beautiful, his creators had been homely and Wheeljack under that ridiculous face plate of his was more on the handsome side of beauty. Still sometimes, like the perfect golden dawn in summer or a youngling activating its optics for the first time, beauty caught him by surprise.

And, Ratchet mused as he tried to get his spark back in its chamber and his glossa out of his throat; this was definitely one of those times. They were _beautiful_. Warriors, taller than him by at least a head were pressed against the far wall. Bright plating colored a ruddy gold and deep red glimmered in the fire lit room. Their lines were clean, forms radiating power and strength even in their unconscious state.

Yet, something was off about how they stood there. It was as if they had no optics to speak of. Ratchet took a fresh candle from his pack, lighting it from the closest wall sconce and approached the warrior pair – and cursed in horrified surprise. The pair had been bolted to massive arching pillars. The heavy titanium spikes piercing through each joint ensured they would not be moving easily. Chains secured their frames to the pillars over the bolts as if someone feared the two could have the strength to rip the bolts from their systems.

Thick blind folds masked the upper portions of their faces, gags muzzled them and around their necks shimmering golden gossamer cloths hung as bizarre accessories to their heavy metal bindings. Ratchet huffed resignedly; Cyclonus had told him to tend to the soldiers down this corridor. So tend he would.

He pulled a lantern from his parts bin, making the area around the matched warriors shine brightly. Then, finally ready to begin the messy procedure of freeing the pair he turned to the golden form. Bolts were carefully pulled from the wounds, each gaping hole thoroughly cleaned and bound despite the disconcerting lack of gushing fluids. With each spike pulled Ratchet looked for the silver grey of processed energon, the light blue coolant, dark greenish-black lubricants, vibrant orange hydraulics, venom yellow servo fluids, or any other rainbow hued fluid a mech could generate – and found none.

The frames beneath his hands hummed steadily from active systems. They were running on the cool side, but with so little fluids in their systems Ratchet was grateful that they ran at all. Finally, the last wound tended, he pulled the chains from the warriors, one at a time with painstaking slowness. He had to carefully lower them to the ground to keep from aggravating their wounds.

Hands and arms trembling from the exertion Ratchet finally rolled the golden warrior over, accidentally snagging the golden gossamer on a seam and pulling partially off the black neck cabling. With a curse Ratchet ripped the fabric away and reached for the gag and blindfold on the mech.

Suddenly he was pinned against the golden plating, the mech sitting up faster than Ratchet could process the movement. Strong arms held him immobile against the broad chest plates. This close to the other mech a soft fragrance rose to Ratchet's olfactory sensors, alluring and heady he pressed closer, white hot desire making him rub wantonly against the other as another set of arms wrapped securely about his waist sandwiching him between both warriors with a needy moan.

"Please" the plea echoed in the cavernous, dark room a desperate voice Ratchet distantly recognized as his own. Then, with delicious agony their mouths latched onto his neck, fangs deep within his cabling making his frame shudder and lurch as energon levels depleted faster than his systems could handle. Exquisite ecstasy thrummed through Ratchet's heaving systems as he ground his interface panel against the golden warrior. The black void beyond nirvana beckoned him as his lust heightened, wanton moans filled the room. Alerts filled his vision as his systems tried to warn him of immanent systems failures, still he cared little, only having the capacity to raise shaking arms to pull the pair closer uncaring of the consequences.

"No!" a dual tone cry filled the room, tearing Ratchet from the brink of release to come crashing down onto the cold floor in a painful heap. Resetting his optics Ratchet's systems heaved raggedly. He had just succumbed to a vampire kiss. He shuddered from cold and terror as realization came crashing down on how close he had come to his own death.

He finally pushed himself to sit on his knees, frame chilled and running too hot. Weak, trembling hands sought his medical pack, weakly pulling a condensed energon ration and chewing it carefully. Lust still pooled in his interface systems, made his unfulfilled desires known despite the terror that flooded his every system as a bitter counterpoint to the flood of energon hitting his tanks. Even as his processors still spun from his encounter he shuddered, finally realizing that he was alone –

Then the screams started.

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><p>AN: I'm evil, aren't I?


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly enough.

A/N: I'm posting as fast as I dare with college in session, please bear with me. ^.^ Again, thanks to all my reviewers and Chimeradark for providing the prompt!

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><p>Sanctuary<p>

Part Four

First Aid groaned as the crackling of a fire filtered into his audios. His processors hurt, his frame was burning and freezing – and he couldn't hear the soft hum of Ratchet's systems. "Doan' move, younglin'. Ya took a hard knock from those smelter-whore damned 'Con's." A deep, gruff voice rumbled near his audio.

"'Atchet?" Aid asked foggily, white hands pressing tiredly against aching optics that refused to come on-line.

"We're scoutin' fer him. Been followin' yer trail fer the last week. The lad pushes ya hard on the trail, harder'n he should." Aid nodded absently at the deep voice, finally booting his optics.

"Who are you?" The young healer looked the older red mech up and down, thick grey armor covered his red frame, small weapons and vials were strapped across the thick chest and broad hips in a lethal array.

"We're vampire hunters, Ironhide and Chromia." A toughened blue femme stepped into the firelight, the burgeoning dawn beginning to brighten the eastern sky in a streak of ominous crimson behind her. "Ratchet is our son."

Spluttering, finally sitting up as words failed him Aid looked between the hunters as his processors caught up with him, "But his brother's a nightwalker!"

"Yeah, found him that way. We couldn't just kill the younglin' when we found him. So we raised him as a mortal, much as we could." Chromia smiled wistfully, "He chose to leave our home a few years ago, and when our village noticed one of our lads never came out into the sun. He didn't want to endanger us, or Ratchet."

Still gapping, stunned as he contemplated a pair of vampire hunters raising a vampire as their own child – "But, I thought vampires didn't age?" The thought hit him with a near tangible force, knocking the air out of his systems at the magnitude of the implication.

"They _shouldn't_ be able to." Ironhide nodded sagely, "They should remain unchanged forever, nevah agin' nevah dyin cept from somethin' like us." He waggled his thumb between himself and his mate. "Yet we're findin' _communities_ o' nightwalkers with aged elders an growin' younglins, both born and created."

"That is why I created the Sanctuary. To determine what has caused so drastic a change within the nightwalker lineage." A deep rumbling voice with the presence and weight of the coming of Primus himself intoned into the early morning light. Aid, optics overly bright and huge in awe turned his head with painful, hesitant slowness until he faced the speaking mech.

Tall, powerful, regal and emanating an aura of _eternity_ the speaker shone in the early crimson dawn, optics tinged with the morning's hue appeared almost violet, almost like a nightwalkers. The mech's size and presence were intimidating, but it was the titanium circlet upon the broad brow and signet ring forged _into_ the mech's dermal plating along the back of his ring finger that made Aid tremble.

"Emperor Prime." Aid gasped, struggling from the bed roll he lay on to kneel before the Prime, and found himself easily pinned back to the ground by Chromia.

The deep voice rumbled a chuckle, "Please, it's just Optimus." He knelt by the young medic, optics piercing in their intensity, "We will get Ratchet back. I promise all of you that. However, the Decepticons are out of their home territory, and these warriors are not here to protect missionaries. I fear this will be the precursor to war."

"War?" Aid squeaked in fear, awe, terror and humility. He had heard of war in the ancient chronicles, all thanks to the Emperor before them. He, and his predecessors had fought to keep Iacon a peaceful realm for generations.

A crack rang out in the early morning stillness, startling all about the fire to their feet, Ironhide pulling weapons and stepping before the emperor in a fluid motion that grated against the image his large armored frame cast. Chromia had likewise pulled her weapons and stepped before the young healer, shielding the youngling with her frame.

"You two are playing with fate like that." Optimus rumbled with a smirk at two forms that seemed to fade in from nothingness at the edge of the forest. The pair remained silent, stepping into the firelight causing an instant shift in the hunters from merely at ready to attack mode in an astrosecond.

"By the smeltering _Pits_, what the slag is a wolf doing here Prime?" Ironhide demanded, weapons gripped tightly as he stood ready for the pair before them.

"Stand down, 'Hide, these are my infiltrators, Hound and Mirage." The green mech nodded first, followed by the regal blue and white, each responding to their designations.

"We have found the healer." Mirage spoke in fluid regal tones, gold optics enigmatic and impossible to read. "It is far worse than we expected."

"They slaughtered the village everyone from sparklet to elder was terminated, and now hangs for the vultures to tear apart their frames for the last residues of energon in their lines. They destroyed the Autobot enclave from Greensteel, the survivors now hang as trophies in their chapel for their wounded to gloat over while they await repairs. This is where they are keeping Ratchet." Houned finished, kind blue optics pouring all the anguish he dared not voice.

'Hide glared from the infiltrators to his emperor, dermal plating grinding and squeaking in his fury. "Ah won't ask again, Prime. What is a _wolf_ doing here?"

Optimus looked calmly down to the hunter, optics gleaming with a hidden amusement that seemed out of place. "He's not a wolf, 'Hide, he's veil-sparked."

"I thought those sparked with the veil of primus shielding their optics was a myth." First Aid spoke nervously, thinking on the old texts that detailed the rare on-lining of a sparkling whose optics would not shine. The optics remained as dark as those brought back to Primus, despite the rest of the new creation functioning perfectly, including the youngling being able to see through those darkened optics. Those texts had spoken of strange abilities, foreknowing of events, miraculous healings, even shape shifting.

"Such is not mythology, young one." Mirage spoke, uncanny yellow optics meeting Aid's terrified blue. "Of those in my lineage only I was _blessed_ with the wolfling curse."

Aid looked from the relaxed stance of Hound to the stiff, formal pose of Mirage and wondered how, of the two, the big city noble mech was the wolf and not the one that radiated a calm belonging in the wilds.

"I'm getting' mah younglin' back." Hide turned from the others, in step with Chromia and saddled their mounts. Optimus could only sigh, this was Ironhide's expedition, he only ran the country and thus he had no power here. The irony never failed to escape him.

"Very well, old friend, but _they_ lead." Optimus gestured to Hound and Mirage, signaling the pair to guide them safely and unseen to Coldsteel Garrison. The six trekked through the thick forest, darkened woods dappled in the morning sunlight held secreted patches of midnight where movement seemed to follow them.

Aid twitched at every sound, every hint of movement that caught the corner of his optic. He clung desperately tight to Hound's frame on the large steed that bore them while Mirage trotted ahead as a wolf flitting with impossible fluid grace from shadow to shadow, skirting all light.

Suddenly, as if given wings, Mirage soared through the air, snarling as he tackled a form to Aid's right that screeched a curse uncannily similar to Ironhide and Ratchet in its intensity. As if cued by the curse, Ironhide snarled one of his own, wading into a battle that outclassed him like a fresh recruit in a gladiator ring as he ripped the combatants apart.

"_Enough!_" The mortal shook the pair as hard as he could, despite barely fazing them, his voice stilled them with far more efficiency. "'Jack, You know better than to slink near a wolf! And, you, keep your filthy denta off my younglin'!"

"I am not filthy." Mirage snarled imperiously, eyeing the nightwalker warily.

"Uh, hi pops?" 'Jack chirped as he brightened his audio indicators entreatingly. 'Hide's shoulders sagged, completely at a loss with his offspring, as most creators were.

"Don't call me pops youngun. Yer a mech, an' I got a name, so use it!" The red hunter looked his white nightwalker son over carefully, "What are ya doin' here anyhow?"

"There might be a problem." Jack looked to the group, bowing to Optimus in stunned greeting, "Imminence, you need to here this. Blue, get out here."

Behind the inventor a gray mech strode out, door wings arched nervously over his back as he looked the strange group over in awe and hid behind Jack. "Highness, sirs, ma'am, I'm Bluestreak."

"What do we need to hear, Bluestreak?" Optimus asked gently, modulating his voice to a soft tone to soothe the younger mech.

"I was raised behind Steeldale, in an old mill. My creators were the last of the lineage entrusted to guard a secret from the Great War. I couldn't remember, after the attack and it was only after Ratchet left that it came back to me. I know the secret only as my creators told me:

"Listen youngling, and listen well, for this is your only warning. Long ago they walked the land, Crimson as the bloody foreboding dawn, golden as the gentle evening sunset. The pair were glorious to behold, beautiful as Primus, merciless in their gluttony, relentless in sating their lust; bringing entire civilizations to their knees.

"These nightwalkers hunted as a pair, never apart they ravaged our world. Kill one, he will revive, kill both and they will come back for you. Unkillable and insatiable, they of the Darkest Pits, held all of Iacon as fodder.

"In an act of desperation, The Great Mage, Alpha Trion, aided with the sacrifice of a dozen noble sparklings to sate the demonic appetites, sealed the pair away forever. Optics blindfolded, faces muzzled, a dozen spikes in each and then bound to sacred pillars in chains the two would remain in darkness eternal."

Bluestreak paused in his telling from 'Jack's arms, the nightwalker easily keeping up with the riders and Mirage, "But, there's another ending." The young chevroned face looked to each of the others, his blue optics nervous, door wings trembling.

"Both stories are the same, to a point: 'These nightwalkers hunted as a pair, the mercilessly tortured and cruelly trained attack dogs of _The Beast_ who held all of Iacon as his pets' fodder.

"In an act of desperation the Great Mage, Alpha Trion, slaughtered a dozen noble younglings to lure in the Darkest pair and bound them with a seal, a sacred chain that could only be moved when the Nightwalkers' true bonded broke it." Blue paused, hands clenching nervously about the longbow he clutched to him.

"Those _things_ are hidden somewhere in Steeldale, and if the 'Con's find them, if they find a way to release them – these things have been sealed for over a thousand years, they'll be angry, hungry – and – and we're on the menu." Blue hid his face against 'Jack's shoulder, trembling in fear.

"He was only told that story a few days before the Decepticon's destroyed his village, everything. He's been fighting to stay alive and find reason to live since then. I won't let him watch his world be destroyed twice." Jack promised, normally merry optics hard with determination.

"Yup, definitely your son." Hound spoke, nodding to 'Hide and Chromia. "He smells like you, regardless of the change."

'Jack stared at the green mech, audio indicators flashing in an uncomfortable strobing effect, "That's impossible. I'm adopted."

The group fell into a taunt silence, tense with unspoken secrets. The early dawn's crimson warning had faded into a glorious mid-morning, the sky a perfect blue over the green canopy. Birds chirped, rodents scurried over dented and packed snow. Life thrived in every direction.

Then the screams began.

* * *

><p><em>Gold and red pinning him, <em>enthralling_ him, thick fangs sunk deeply into his cabling. The agony of their _kiss_ addictive and erotic sending scorching flames of desire licking hungrily through his systems making him desire more than their kiss..._

Ratchet pulled himself out of the memory, struggling to keep any alive that he could. Still dented from their bruising embrace, still sore from the cold, hard, jarring into reality, landing he suffered on the unyielding stone floor. He had staggered from the darkened room, healing pack dragging behind him as he lacked the strength to carry it. He returned to the chapel, the many rows of now gray and lifeless Decepticons who starred with darkened optics to their trembling Autobot prisoners who sobbed voicelessly at seeing so many die.

Ratchet found the matched guards, Runabout and Runamuck, the black and white pair clung together desperately where their now gray frames lay next to the plating that had once made up their faces. Their faces had been removed painfully, their ruined facial structures frozen in agony.

Like the other Decepticons in the hall they were terminated, and some small part of Ratchet danced with unholy _glee_ that they had been terminated. The greater portion trembled in grief, guilt and terror. _He_ had wanted to peel the tortured pair's faces off. The nightwalkers had done it for him. Cycling vents to keep his nauseated tanks from releasing their contents Ratchet took keys from the gray frames. He turned to the Autobot prisoners, slowly, one by one, freeing them and helping them as he could.

* * *

><p>Thundering of hooves preceded their arrival, the six mechs, nightwalker and veil-born stormed into Coldsteel Garrison – and froze. The ravaged forms of the entire village hung from pillars in the keep's courtyard. Femms of almost every age raped and beaten, the fabric of their clothes ripped to display their defilement like trophies. Mechs had been bludgeoned to death, their tormented expressions still frozen onto long-cold faceplates spoke of them watching as the Decepticons took their depraved pleasures on the femmes they had sworn to protect.<p>

Bluestreak sobbed, voice hitching as his mother and three sisters came into view. Hanging like petro-rabbits after the kill, dresses torn, immature interface plating brutally ripped from the younger frames told of the torture he had witnessed from the hidden room his family had thrust him, the youngest, into for safety.

Beyond the villagers, strewn like ragdolls the Decepticons lay freshly terminated. Faces skewed in immoral pleasure, mouths frozen with wanton moans on their lips, the 'Cons had been pleasured in the agony of the _thrall_. These nightwalkers were powerful, their stench hanging on the air making Mirage gag.

"Mirage," Optimus barked, "Get to Goldstone Sanctuary, tell Prowl I need everyone here _now_." With a nod the shape shifting wolf vanished. Optimus looked to Ironhide, watching the aged hunter with concern.

Taking in the destruction in a glance Ironhide and Chromia dismounted, racing with Wheeljack in the lead to the shaded chapel and their hopes of finding Ratchet. The chapel loomed before them, the stark features of the once homely church a startling contrast to the destruction before it and the pristine white snow blanketing the disquieting scene.

"This ain't natural." Ironhide paused, just before the church kneeling in the deep shadows stretching before it, staring at the still on-line Decepticon that had been rendered into basic components. The once warrior had been peeled, like an onion, layer by layer. His vital lines lay against the snow, living fluids rushing thrhough the slightly transparent hosing. Core structures lay close to the still pulsing fuel pump and errily glowing spark chamber displayed openly on the snow. Bright, cracked, hateful optics looked from the ground up at Hide, making the old hunter yelp. Those optics were _sane_.

Hide shuddered, no one could remain sane through this torture, yet, a bit of facial plating twitched into a smirk. This creature wasn't mortal. Aghast, sickened and feeling a terror he had not known since his first huntm Ironhide backed from the living art work and wondered if this thing_ was_ kill-able.

"By Primus, Hide, get over here!" Chromia barked, pulling Ironhide from the dismembered 'Con, as she darted into the church, Bluestreak and Wheeljack hot on her heels. There, in his red and white glory, knelt Ratchet. Alive, shaking and deathly silent he tended to an Autobot who lay sobbing and trembling between two gray Decepticon frames. Along the walls other Autobots hung like trophies some silent, others wailing. Still more lay with faces buried in damaged hands between their terminated tormentors.

Dull blue optics looked up from his patient, "Get the others down. Find some energon, thermal blankets, move the terminated. Look for younglings and femmes, this was a Decepticon city." Ratchet looked back to his work, lost in a haze of exhaustion, pain and something that simmered behind his optics, something that disturbed his family greatly.

Silently the others got to work, saving the living, moving the dead, and all watching Ratchet like hawks. The normally volatile healer was calm, murmuring soothingly over sobbing patients. His bedside manner was tender, his treatment flawless. Ironhide shuddered, he'd rather be facing the heathens responsible for this, than face the unholy wrath that Ratchet would let loose when he'd stewed long enough, and any who knew the master healer felt the same self-preserving fear.

* * *

><p>Late afternoon saw the last of the Autobot prisoners released, and treated. A spare house had been found, clean, empty and thankfully peaceful. Chromia had placed the Autobots within the many rooms, bunking them four to six per room, not allowing any to feel alone. It was the greatest kindness she could offer. With the coming of sunset came Mirage, leading the peaceful nightwalkers and mortals of the sanctuary.<p>

The influx of mechs lowered the Steeldale villagers from the pillars, gathered the grayed Cons into tidy rows and cleaned out the chapel. The work was nearly done. Ratchet sat snugly between Wheeljack and Ironhide sipping a cube of energon Chromia had to help hold steady. "Lovey," she touched the bite marks on his neck gently, "Who hurt you?"

Wheeljack smiled slightly at his femme creator's tone, she had only ever coddled them once each that he could remember while they had been growing up, and for each of them it had been after witnessing their first hunt.

Ratchet shook his head tiredly, refusing to talk, refusing to look up from the trembling energon cradled in his and his carrier's hands.

"Lad, if ya don't say sommut soon I'll lock ya up personally fer the week of changin'." Ironhide snarled, smacking Ratchet up the back of the helm.

"Creator! I'm immune slaggit all, I _can't be changed!_ Ratchet roared, optics finally showing the fire he held in his spark. "The held me in _thrall_ they claimed me in their _kiss_ and they _read my slaggin' processors_!" Ratchet flung himself away from the loving arms, storming back and forth as he raged. "I wanted them dead! I wanted every last Con who had even touched the villagers to be terminated. I wanted to peel the faces right off those guards, wanted Cyclonus ripped to his core components. Look around you, they did exactly what I had thought.

"This happened because of me. I freed them, I fed them and I gave them the perfect slaggin' smelter-born, pit spawned smorgasbord of evil Con energon to restore them. Me, I. Did. This." Ratchet's intakes heaved in his distress, optics brightening and dimming as he finally keened his aguish. Strong arms embraced him, lowering him gently to the cold floor where the family kneeled, their sparks pulsing strongly together as they offered Ratchet the only solace they could.

"Forgive the intrusion, old friend, but your healer needs to see this." Optimus looked into the now empty chapel with only the very strange family within. Ironhide nodded his understanding, bending his attention to making Ratchet get up.

"C'mon younglin', there's probably someone hurt." Ironhide cajoled, "Ya haven't finished trainin the lad, an' he'll need ya."

Vents cycling, intakes constricting from exhaustion and emotional trauma Ratchet finally moved, his family still surrounding him as they walked from the chapel in to the fading sunlight that painted white snowdrifts and thick evergreens alike in a rich golden hue.

"How is he still on-line?" Optimus asked, pointing to the dismembered frame no one had been willing to touch throughout the day. Ratchet tensed, kneeling by the frame of the mech he hated the most. He shuddered, the thought had been involuntary, hovering somewhere in the back of his processors throughout the day before of wanting to rend Cyclonus into core components. Yet, here before him was the very mech rendered just as Ratchet had wished.

Scanning the frame Ratchet shuddered, Cyclonus' frame was drawing together, overactive nanites recreating connections lost picometer by picometer. It would take time but Cyclonus would live – and it was impossible – for a _mortal_. Spark stilling in his chest Ratchet looked to the disembodied optics, noting microcracks in the red lenses traced in violet.

Terror thrilled through Ratchet, the last two days finally reaching his breaking point Ratchet did the only thing his overtaxed systems could do. "Nightwalker!" He shrieked, voice bellowing and loud as he backpedaled from Cyclonus to hide behind Chromia, safely in Wheeljack's arms.

"Sommat's got the kid spooked." Ironhide drawled to cover his unsettled state. Ratchet had never hid from anything. Not as a youngling, not as a grown mech. Yet, now 'Jack and Ratchet had swapped roles, the younger sheltering and protecting his big brother.

"Ratchet, can you patch into his core processors, determine his actions within Steeldale?" Optimus asked gently. "I need to know if he is guilty of leading his mech in this atrocity, or if he is guilty of negligence in keeping them in line."

Nodding, Ratchet moved to Cyclonus, finding a still connected cerebral port. With deft movements he connected, streaming the entire memory cortex into a side partition in his own processors that would check them for corruption issues and hidden threats. Once checked he patched to a main data port in the emperor's wrist.

"That is his guilt, his admission, and he has no shame." Ratchet seethed, usually soft blue optics bleeding to pale bluish white as he seethed and trembled in a heady mix of terror and fury over Cyclonus' frame.

Optimus opened the file, and reeled as the worst depravities, heinous cruelty and insidious perversity played before his optics. Younglings raped, families tortured, mechs trained with torture and pleasure twisted into unholy pit spawn for the purple mech to toy with. Optimus shuddered, forced the memory playback to cease and prayed for forgiveness.

Swift and sure Optimus lunged at the dismembered mech, slamming his fists through spark and core processor casings simultaneously to terminate Cyclonus. "I need high grade, holy water and white oak branches. _Now!_"

"Here," Ratchet held out thick stakes of white oak and several vials. "This will destroy him."

Optimus sighed, looking to Ratchet with such gentleness as to make Ratchet feel unworthy to be before the larger mech, and grateful to be standing there. "Forgive me Ratchet," The emperor reached up to his optics, deftly removing blue optic lenses to reveal the violet optics beneath, "But you will have to destroy him."

Dead silence filled the late evening air as Ratchet staggered, once more feeling as if the world had turned upside down. "But – emperor?" Ratchet balked, lost, terrified, exhausted, achy, and suddenly pissed. "You fraged, soggy processored, organic born, half-sparked glitch! How the slag are you a nightwalker - fraggit - how old are you?"

Startled at the sudden shift in the healer, Optimus found himself backing away very carefully, hands raised in submission. "Two thousand years. I was changed by my brother during the last Great War."

"We are having words, _Imperial highness_, believe me we are having words." Ratchet turned from Optimus to savagely impale every major system in Cyclonus' blackening chassis, doused the disturbing montage with high grade and lit the remains on fire.

"You, guard!" Ratchet snarled, snagging a Goldstone guard passing by and thrusting a vial into the startled mech's hands. "This is holy water. _Take. It._ When these flames cease to smolder _sprinkle_ that entire vial over the ashes, and do it before midnight. I don't want that sorry sadistic fragger coming back for an encore."

Content that the immediate threat of Cyclonus reviving had been handled Ratchet once more turned on the emperor. "Where's my apprentice?"

"With me, I tried to keep him from seeing the worst. We searched the keep and all sealed buildings for survivors. All Decepticon younglings and several young mechs an' femmes have been recovered, along with a small band of Steeldale and Greensteel survivors. We've turned the weavers' hall and apprentice house into an infirmary.

"He's tired, and a little dinged, but he has not been harmed." Hound approached Ironhide's family calmly, "You should probably look him over though." Ratchet nodded, glaring one last time at the nightwalker emperor and grinned darkly with Ironhide began the task of interrogating the Prime.

* * *

><p>Morning, calm blue sky, and not a hint of crimson on the horizon, Ratchet sighed languidly. Three weeks had passed since Coldsteel Garrison. The town had been renamed, Healer's Wrath, with the combined survivors of Steeldale, Coldsteel and Greensteel forging a new town together. The chapel had been altered, blending the Decepticon, Autobot and Neutral faiths together as they tried to find a mutual path to recover for the destruction.<p>

Optimus had returned to the Imperial City guarded by Ironhide and Chromia, now his Captain of the Guard and Head of Security. Wheeljack and Bluestreak had followed the rest of Goldstone's populace back to their sanctuary, promising any aid to Healer's Wrath the new town required. Ratchet smiled slightly in his slightly stiff way station cot, First Aid had remained in Healer's Wrath, finishing his journeyman's trial by creating a healing center of the processor, spark and frame for those recovering from such horrible trauma under the tutelage of several healers who had remained hidden with the Decepticon femmes and younglings. The lad was far more suited to life in the medical wards. Ratchet knew he would be fine.

Now, Ratchet was on his own again. Not that he'd ever write to 'Jack or his creators about _that_. He had been traveling this route alone for the greater part of the last ten years. He had never had anyone with him before and being alone again felt _wonderful_.

"Watch the paint, slagger!" The voice snarled on the other side of the small roadside cottage, pulling Ratchet out of his cot like a shot. There, curled together on two too small cots were two brightly colored young hooligans dressed in light merc armor.

"If you come into an inhabited way station after the first arrival is in recharge, its common courtesy to be quiet!" Ratchet snarled, making the pair bolt upright with harsh glares.

"Know your place, healer." The yellow – yellow, thank Primus! – one snarled impudently.

"My _place_?" Ratchet asked with calm menace, "I'll show you my place." He stood, wrench in one hand as he stepped to fulfill his threat, only to have the red one – giggle.

"He's funny, can we keep him?" Red asked of yellow with big pleading optics that looked too ridiculous for Ratchet to deal with. Snorting, fury deflating, Ratchet grabbed his satchel, folded his cot and left the way station and the bickering pair inside.

"Slagging younglings." The medic grumbled as he stormed on the northern road, pedes sinking shin deep into the thickly layered snow. His time in Goldstone and Steeldale had destroyed his normal time table, as had taking an apprentice. He should have been to his northern most city already, waiting in relative comfort for the worst of winter to seal the passes.

"Oh, are you heading to Crystal Spire?" The red one asked, suddenly at Ratchet's side.

"Gah, make some noise! Primus, I've nearly had enough surprises for a lifetime. Yes I'm heading that way, no, you two cannot come with me. When I stop you two better keep the slag going and be gone before I get there."

"Good, we'll leave you at Pax Cristalia." Yellow sneered as Ratchet's face fell.

"Why the slag are you two going there?"

"Trade." Red shrugged easily. Ratchet gritted his denta, knowing he had no choice but to travel with the pair through the crystal clear, frigid morning. Ratchet shook his head, lengthening his strides to leave the taller warriors behind.

The pair strode through the snow languidly, their forms gleaming in the early morning light. Red cavorted around yellow, the quieter of the two snarling at his vivacious travel partner to watch the paint or slag off. Still, Ratchet mused as the way station faded behind them and left them in a nearly blinding world of dark evergreens and blinding whiteness, hearing their voices kept darker memories at bay.

As midday approached the snow dimmed, clouds building up before them and still several klicks before Pax Cristalia. Ratchet looked up he sighed in defeat. The clouds were ominously black as the trees swayed angrily with the ever approaching wind. Behind him, the brightly colored pair fell silent.

The roar of the freezing sub-artic gale tore through Ratchet's layered cloaks and thick, quilted canvas tunic like blades of ice. He had never been between villages this late in the season. He staggered with the wind, weighed down by heavy clothes and a heavier healer's pack.

"Woah, there come on." Arms wrapped around Ratchet's frame keeping him steady. Larger frames blocked the piercing wind, creating a small delicate cocoon of warmth around Ratchet's steadily freezing frame. This was going to be a long trek. Heaving a silent sigh of resignation Ratchet let himself be sheltered as the trio struggled on through the worsening storm.

* * *

><p>AN: Still going ...


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Warnings for mentions of suicide this chapter, it's not overly dark but that is a touchy subject. You have been warned. Again I own nothing, sadly enough. This was a prompt initially suggested by DeathStallion on DeviantArt (yes I am enough of a Noob that this was listed as DA and it took me over a month to figure that one out.) and suggested on the twins-x-ratch group on livejournal by chimeradark. (Thank you both for giving me this infuriatingly long winded plot bunny.)

* * *

><p>"<em>Listen demons, and listen well, for these are the last words you will ever hear…<em>

Frigid wind whipped through clothes, ripping across numb plating not covered and bored painful needles of cold into intakes and optics careless of the three mechs struggling through the winter gale. The three moved as one, stepping in unison as they pressed together huddling in line to keep the middle mech from the bitter cold.

He stepped, struggling against the wind pushing against him like the hand of Primus keeping them in this Hell of freezing wind and piercing snow. Each step was a fight, every pace forward a minute victory in a long battle against the elements. Sideswipe kept his head down, using his broad shoulders as a plow against nature's forces.

Behind him, pressed against his layers of shirts and jackets, was Ratchet, the healer shivering violently despite his own layers of clothing and Sunstreaker behind him. For once Sideswipe regretted being a nightwalker, regretted his body's lack of heat that would have warmed Ratchet. Sideswipe pressed harder into the wind, forcing his legs to work harder against the weather as his processors went back to their cold imprisonment …

"_Listen demons, and listen well, for these are the last words you will ever hear. Optics bound, you will never see beauty, mouths sealed you will never utter the lies that brought so many to you. Steaks of titanium to keep you forever bound, chains of unbreakable white iridium and sacred seals to keep your sprits from ever reaching the Light of Primus should you do us all a service and _die_." High Priest Alpha Trion intoned as they slowly came awake._

"_Listen unholy filth and listen well for this is your only hope. Primus does not give recourse to evil, keeps joy from the wicked. Evil minions of the Pit, only one means of release exists for you." Another voice lilted through the stifling darkness, "Should Primus in His benevolence bind a pure spark to both of yours, and should that pure being release you of her own free will without out ill intent, only then will you once more be free."_

_The sound of pedes turning on stone echoed in the silence as the two priests left the dark room, "They may yet find escape." Alpha Trion spoke._

"_Primus is not so cruel as to bind a single femme to that pair. For making our emperor and his only offspring nightwalkers they deserve worse." The other voice replied, "Curse the Beast for making this pair immune to all agents known to weaken and kill the nightwalker scourge."_

"_For your crimes against Emperor Sentinel, Crown Prince Optimus and Prince Magnus you will remain bound for all eternity. These sacred seals will keep you powerless, frozen, blind, mute and _alive_." Alpha Trion spoke into the stillness as the echoing of the door sealing filled the room and faded into complete and all encompassing silence …_

_Eternity, forever, infinity; the incomprehensible span of time that lasted long past the processor's capacity to handle the unending agony of perpetual existence. Mortals bandied such words so easily. To love forever. A reign to last all eternity. A love that will go on forever. What did mortals know of eternity? What could they? _

_The being had lived in utter silence for long enough to forget that it had a past. To forget the feeling of sunlight on its plating or the hiss of wind over its audios. To forget, in the shivering vaporous clinging of its spark that it was not one, but two beings sealed in silence – and forgotten._

_In the endless darkness a voice trickled into its processors, a distant voice unheard but listened to, the being starved of contact of any kind drinking in its presence desperately, constantly seeking more. "I can heal her dammit! You can't keep treating your sick with folk remedies that only make them worse!" The voice was harsh and desperate, so full of caring, brimming with concern and strengthened by an indomitable will. _

_And, all too soon it was gone. The reclaimed silence, reinforced solitude was made all the worse for that minute contact. Starving, freezing, longing the being waited, hoping for the other's return and despaired._

"_Of course I came back you sorry ninnies! This is my route, and since the whole slagging lot of morons calling themselves village leaders in this area keep nothing more than midwives and hedge wizards to tend their mechs then it falls to me to tend this whole fragged district."_

_The presence returned, and would eight more times, each one bringing more awareness to the being trapped in silence. Each return to silence bringing a grating in its spark that jarred the conjoined being, slowly reminding it that this was not the only existence it had known._

"_Where?" The presence had come back, the tenth time and this time it brought a sensation of pain and dizziness. "Where – where am I?" For the first time the presence radiated fear, feeling to the silent being less like an entity of endless power and more of a scared youngling. The being pressed as close as it could to the presence – and shifted. Brought aware of the two frames it inhabited it was torn between watching the other outside of itself and probing to remember what it itself was. _

_:: You always were an idiot. :: The thought jarred them from their long state of isolation, becoming acutely aware of the stale energon congealed in their lines. How long had it been since they had been sealed away? How much of an eternity had they faced since losing consciousness during their last battle with the obsessed priest and his followers?_

"_If you've killed First Aid the darkling races will be the least of your worries." The presence spoke once more into their shared connection, radiating a deep desire to harm another that jarred painfully with a deeper abhorrence to violence._

_:: He's in trouble. ::_

_:: And we're stuck here.:: Their minds separated the pair dredged their slow processors for the last words, the ones that Alpha Trion had left them with, the 'last words they would ever hear.' Yet the memory eluded them, the memory that was important for some reason._

"_Who?" The presence asked wearily, radiating a deep exhaustion tainted with sorrow, self loathing and hate. Whatever was happening to him outside of their prison the pair could not tell, but in his ten appearances into their processors he had never felt so exhausted, worn or lost._

_::Trion said something about hope, a hope – gah something!:: One spoke, his name lost to memory._

_::Freedom, from here. We could get free.:: The other murmured in the seeming eternity devoid of the presence._

_::Brother, I'm tired.:: The first admitted, his presence seeming to sag and weaken. ::When he leaves this time, when he goes away and the silence comes back – I don't want to stay anymore.::_

_A slight hush, a real sound that assaulted their audios since the departure of the priests an eternity ago, filled the room. ::There's room around some of the spikes we can rip through them. We're weak enough that we won't survive the damage.::_

_::Thank Primus.:: The pair sighed as one, grateful for knowing their frames had dried over the eons and now they could rip themselves from their prison and blessedly die._

"_Do you have washing facilities or do you want to smell me all day?" The presence suddenly came back, awake, angry, hateful, bitter and tired. The silent pair rejoiced at his voice, drank in the anger and hate, consumed the bitterness as they once had consumed mechblood and felt renewed._

_Silence returned but a macabre feast of grief, and turmoil filled them from the other. The presence beyond their reach was swiftly reaching the point where agony overran everything else and soon, like them it would cease to exist. The pair rejoiced in knowing the other would not leave this time but join them in death._

"_Fraggit, make some noise!" The stunned alarm amused them, the pair enjoying the many connotations the presence's words could take. Gruff irritation filled their connection, warming the pair's frozen spark – then a new noise assaulted their over sensitive audios. A creaking groan followed by the heavy brush of the thick door grating across the stone floor. Warmth rushed into their frigid prison making the heavy moisture condense on their metal frames underneath clothes turned into so many fibers and dust from the ages._

"_Fraggit! My brother is a nightwalker and I'm afraid of a cold room and a little water." The voice filtered into the room from outside, gruffer than they expected. The voice sent thrills of anticipation through the pair, now suddenly hyperaware of their own frames and the aching agony of their old wounds._

_Footsteps entered the room, the snick, click of a flint and steel before the crawling sear of a smoldering ember that grew into the dry crackle of fire. Their sparks sang at hearing actual sound. Their olfactory senses long numbed to the musty, damp stink of their stone prison smelled a bouquet of fragrances. Burning wood and kerosene, healing salves, high quality wax and clean linen clothes. _

_The presence turned, flooding their connection with awe. He was seeing something so beautiful it moved his spark. They longed to see what he did, to see him. Then the awe turned to horror, the horror muted into stiff resolve. Footsteps, loud in the silent room approached, the clink of metal on stone and then hands – _thank Primus real hands _– were on their plating pulling spikes from their frames and carefully, struggling against their heavier frames lowered them to the floor._

_With slow, painful realization the pair realized they had been denied the relief of suicide by Alpha Trion. Their bindings were so complete that they could not even budge more than their topmost muscle cables under their plating. Nothing would budge and they were sealed until this angelic being promising hope could free them enough to die._

_Those blessed hands cleaned their wounds, tenderly, carefully bringing relief from the burning agony they had endured for so long. _Listen unholy filth and listen well for this is your only hope. _Alpha Trion's words slowly came back to them as they were tended still frozen in their open prison. Those hands finally reached their final bindings and with no effort they were free – and hungry._

_One sat up, optics freed and on-lined only seeing the delicious mortal with the scent of life and turned to feast. _…only one means of release exists for you._ The other followed swiftly, both sinking fangs deep into the soft neck plating and drinking deeply of the revitalizing mech blood the other offered so willingly along with his body pressed closely against Sunstreaker's frame, pressing, rubbing moaning for more than fangs to fill him._

_The healer pressed between them, captured willingly in their _thrall_ mewled his desire and shuddered radiating the growing darkness that was slowly encompassing him, closer to the point of death and his lust changed from wanting their frames to wanting his own seductive ending._ Should Primus in His benevolence bind a pure spark to both of yours … only then will you once more be free.

_Their processors locked onto the delicious flavor of the healer's mechblood, filling the pained emptiness of their tanks and taking warmth from his hot blood. They drank deeply, bringing the healer closer and closer -_ only then will you once more be free_ – Alpha Trion's words finally came back to them, realization of who they were killing slammed into their sparks like a deathblow and as one they tore themselves from their bonded. "No!"_

_Fury filled them as their bonded fell heavily to the floor, slamming onto the stone and lying too still. They pulled the last memories from their bonded the desire to maim and kill and sought revenge on those who had harmed the healer. They tore from the room, and through the throats of every being that bore the purple crest of the healer's captors. The mortals and vampires united in tormenting the healer would be utterly destroyed …_

::Yeah, that worked well.:: Sunstreaker sent the equivalent of a derisive snort across their innate twin bond. ::He turned out to be immune and blames himself for what we did.::

::That's why we have to make it up to him!:: Sideswipe replied enthusiastically as the first wafts of mortal stench filtered through the pounding wind and snow of the storm. ::We'll be there soon.::

Sunstreaker looked to the bowed head of Ratchet before him and revved his engine harder, seeking to generate more heat to keep the healer alive in the arctic temperatures. ::Will getting him to the next village alive in his pathetic gear suffice?::

::Sunny! He freed us, fed us and kept us from going insane. Saving his life once is a little weak.::

::Fine, but he's getting new gear in the next village. Canvas and linen cloaks over summer tunics is a death wish.::

::See, you do care.:: Sideswipe grinned across their bond. Sunstreaker smiled slightly down on Ratchet despite himself. The mech intrigued him, the heady mix of gruff strength and gentle caring overlaid on a forged steel will and a powerful fear of death and failure was intoxicating when they were close enough to taste the bleed off of excess emotional energy.

"Thank Primus, we're here." Ratchet breathed into the storm. The pair surrounding him shifted as they finally approached the heavy plated steel door set into the thick stone wall surrounding the massive keep of Pax Crystalia. "Who-slaggin-ever is on gate watch let us in!" Ratchet roared as he slammed his fists against the peep hole built into the door.

Behind him the red and yellow mechs he had awoken to in the way station just that morning watched as the door rattled harder in the blizzard than Ratchet could pound. With simultaneous shrugs Red and Yellow slammed their fists against the door in a staccato knock that boomed over the storm and vibrated the very walls of the keep. Yellow smirked down on Ratchet, a superior cast to his features that demanded to be recognized and admired. The seductive curve of his lips that defied the power the taller frame possessed. Ratchet shuddered from the force of the smile, the desire in those optics held a deeper emotion he had no words to describe.

Before the red and yellow pairs' knocking could finish reverberating through the keep the peep hole cracked open against the storm and slammed shut immediately. Voices rose behind the door before the massive portal opened just wide enough for arms to reach out for the trio in the storm and drag them into the warm confines of the enclosed inner gate.

"Healer Ratchet." A tall green mech nodded his greeting to the healer, cross-bow at his side primed and ready for a bolt. "We heard of Decepticons invading Steeldale and a nightwalker attack that decimated the city." The words were a challenge, a test to ensure the healer had not succumbed to the invading nightwalkers.

Ratchet huffed a sigh, walking to a panel beside the gate door and pressing it firmly. He was immediately bathed simulated sunlight, bright and blinding but still cold he shivered in the false light wishing the real sun was out and shining. His demonstration met with the green mech's nod, who then handed him a small sample of high grade. Raising the cube in a silent toast, Ratchet nodded to the green mech and downed the cube easily, saving just a drop he poured directly onto his bare hand to show he had no plating reaction to the concentrated energy.

"Happy now Springer?" Ratchet asked with huffing gruff amusement, smirking at the slightly younger guard captain.

"Sorry Master Healer, you made the protocols." Springer smiled and hugged Ratchet with a firm pat on the shoulder. "Primus you're frozen. We've been worried sick about you."

"My apologies, but aren't you forgetting something?" Ratchet nodded to the suddenly silent and grim pair who had followed him all day, and saved him in the process.

"You two, I need your names." Springer barked, meeting them optic to optic. The pair were well dressed, they looked better kept than warriors despite their warrior build, perhaps fighter trained turned merchant. In these days filled with darklings and nightwalkers, such was not uncommon. The red mech shrugged, the yellow twitched his head as if stopping from shaking his head, then as one they moved to the plate that streamed sunlight, yellow rubbing his arm plating gently all the while.

The guards watched the two closely like turbo-hawks spotting a petro-rabbit for the kill. Crossbows primed and armed, they only had to aim for the spark and cranial processors to terminate the worrisome pair. "Sunstreaker, Sideswipe" the pair replied in unison, neither giving any indication of who was who. They pulled the lacings open on their thick vests and tunics then palmed the sunlight device, bathing themselves in the arcanely derived glow.

"Do we get our high grade now?" the red mech asked brightly, optics showing a hint of darkness that worried Ratchet, while the yellow remained impassive and unreadable.

"Here, do just as the Master Healer did." Springer replied, scrutinizing the pair for any signs of falsehood. The pair took their samples, downing the majority in a single gulp and dribbling the rest on the backs of their hands. "You're Sideswipe, I'm guessing." Springer looked to the red mech, wondering in the same breath how safe it was to speak so to Sunstreaker.

"Yup, that's me." Sideswipe smirked and absently licked the energon off his hand. Beside him Sunstreaker grimaced disdainfully at the sticky stain on his yellow plating and buffed it off with a clean cloth.

"Ratchet is freezing." Sunstreaker snarled at the guards, drawing attention to the shivering medic who could only shudder and glare at the yellow mech.

"Summon our nurse." Springer shoved one of the guards towards a side door that led into the double stone hall set between the inner and outer gate walls. The mech saluted and bolted through the door. Springer looked back at Ratchet with worry as the healer's systems ground painfully as he collapsed.

The guards ran to Ratchet, ready to help control his fall only to pull up short as the healer was caught in waiting red arms, Sunstreaker blocking their approach crouched and ready to fight. "Sideswipe, is he still cycling air?" Springer asked.

"Yes, but he's freezing and that high grade is burning through his systems too fast." Sideswipe glared at the guards, tensing as a knock echoed through the entry.

"Coming in!" A soft voice called through the door, swinging in to reveal a petite pink and white femme in a pale green healing attendant's dress. "Springer – oh, Ratchet's here!" She cried with worry as she brushed fearlessly past Sunstreaker to kneel at the master healer's side.

"We need to get him into the ready room." Arcee beckoned Sideswipe to bring Ratchet into the gate house leading the way into a small chamber kept warm and stocked with medical supplies. "Lay him down." She bent over Ratchet, checking his systems through his under shirt before wrapping him in a heated blanked and slowly fed him warmed mid grade.

"You two, leave Arcee to her work. I would like to speak with you." Springer beckoned the pair to follow him, noting how the pair pensively shifted closer to Ratchet before seeming to wilt and finally nod for him to lead. Together they walked to an empty nearby cell, Springer entered, leaving the door open. "Ratchet has come the same time unerringly for the past ten years. This time he is three weeks late and you two appear connected to him somehow. Why are you here?"

Sideswipe looked to Sunstreaker, the yellow one merely slitting his optics dangerously at Springer, raising one shoulder in a shrug. Sideswipe nodded as if Sunstreaker had spoken. "I'm an energon trader." The red spoke explaining their meeting only a few hours earlier with Ratchet and the day long trek to the keep.

* * *

><p>Ratchet slowly came online, audios registering the soft buzzing of conservation nearby but just out of audio range. He recognized those voices. "Arcee?" He asked with a shiver, his frame freezing despite the warmth wrapped around him and the crackling fire nearby.<p>

"Master Healer!" Arcee cried happily, "You've been taking care of us for the past ten years, and I never thought I'd get the chance to return the favor." She smiled as she handed him another small ration of warmed energon. "Drink this, your systems seized with the cold. You should have dressed warmer to travel this late into the season."

Ratchet sipped gratefully at the warm liquid and huffed in annoyance. "Femmeling, I've been safely ensconced in Crystal Spire by now every year without fail. This year has just been one long string of sorry forsaken slag that kept me from my normal route."

"Trouble?" Springer asked.

"Putting it lightly, yes. I need to speak with your full town council tonight if possible, tomorrow at the latest." Ratchet sat up, leaning against the wall the berth he rested on. "Dark times are upon us."

"I'll set up the meeting for you. You should get over to the inn, Arachnia's got you set up with a room." Springer stood, nodding his farewell to the still resting healer.

"Ratchet, your yellow minion of mischief has been after me all evening to see about you." Arcee smiled at Ratchet impishly. "Sideswipe's getting annoyed with him which probably means Springer's going to have one or both in the prison tonight for fighting."

Ratchet frowned at the name that sounded vaguely familiar. "Sideswipe? I don't – oh, he's the red one isn't he?"

The femme giggled at the healer, finally laughing outright, "They really did tag along with you, didn't they? And yes, Sideswipe is the red one, Sunstreaker is the yellow one."

"They crept into my way station last night and followed me all day." Ratchet slowly rubbed his aching chevron in tired frustration. "Which means I owe them my life, slaggit."

"Don't worry too much, Sideswipe seems focused on making credits. He has some decent energon for sale. Sunstreaker has been making some spectacular drawings. You wouldn't think those heavy line combat mechs could possess such skills." Arcee smiled at the healer, remembering the first time the wily mech had come to their city as a teenaged journeyman healer. No one had believed he had the skills to heal them – until Ratchet had performed a miracle. He saved a young femme from a darkling wood spider. The venom had already begun to melt the femme's internals and yet she survived to make a full recovery.

Arcee absently traced the triangular fang marks where that spider had bitten her those years ago. She had never suffered any illness since, not even from the worst of sicknesses that had taken the lives of her friends over the years.

"Am I staying in the usual room?" Ratchet finally asked with a tired sigh, refusing to think on the mischief the heathen pair could get into in one town during a white out.

"Uh," Arcee blushed, "Arachnia thought they were your – um – _lovers_." She hid her face in her hands giggling in embarrassment. She had never thought to have such a discussion with the master healer, and had always discredited the rumors about him. Now she questioned the claims of his conquests amongst the traders who had come and gone during the years and blushed more brightly.

Springer poked his head into the room with a smile, "I tried to set 'Nia straight, but she's insistent. Already set you three up with her best suite." Springer shrugged as Ratchet groaned and moved to hug his girlfriend as the healer slowly stood.

"Primus is laughing right now, that or he hates me." Ratchet sighed, moving out from under the thick blanket and regaining his pedes. "You did good, Arcee." Ratchet patted the young femme's shoulder and moved from the makeshift infirmary, bracing against the cold of the city beyond the doors.

"You'll freeze – again." Sunstreaker's voice sounded from Ratchet's side as a thick warmth enveloped him, sheltering him from the cold. "They say you never travel this late in the season. Your gear is inadequate."

"How in the name of Primus did you get a rose-bear cloak?" Ratchet asked in awe as he stared at the fine bristled rose gold hued fur. The giant breed of wild bear was difficult to find and harder to kill. Few trappers ever faced the beasts willingly which made the pelt nearly impossible to find and almost prohibitively expensive.

"It was not hard to acquire." Sunstreaker replied softly, finger tracing Ratchet's shoulder softly. Ratchet looked up into the normally hard optics, seeing something in them that scared him. Swallowing and forcing his gaze down, he looked to his shoulder and the dark red dyed petro-rabbit fur crosses sewn into the longer bristled rose bear fur.

"Um, thank you," Ratchet finally breathed, wondering how he could give this intimidating mech the slip to continue his journey alone. The yellow mech's optics spoke of emotions he did not want to think about, emotions he was not ready to face. Hiding a shudder by shifting his satchel Ratchet stepped from the warm inner wall to the frozen night air beyond and headed to Madame Black Arachnia's inn, the Black Fang.

Behind him, standing against the inner wall, Sunstreaker watched Ratchet stride worriedly across the city towards the inn and the warm bed waiting there. Nodding to himself that the healer would be alright the few blocks to the inn Sunstreaker turned back to the main square and the many art projects he had in process there. He and Sideswipe needed the funds to survive in this new era and the ancient coins from eons ago would only draw questions they couldn't answer.

"Master Healer," Black Arachnia purred as Ratchet entered the inn. She smiled her seductive smile, long fangs gleaming in the fire light contrasted breathtakingly with her purplish skin and purple lips. "We're grateful as always for your arrival."

"Arachnia," Ratchet grinned lightly at the femme, she always wore a dress with a bustle, her delicate pedes enclosed in fancy shoes not seen outside of the imperial city. Her fangs and darkened lips made her a much sought after companion by most travelers and those travelers swiftly found out she was neither for sale nor for rent. Her tenacity for independence and devotion to her inn were only comparable to Ratchet's own stubborn independent streak and fierce protectiveness over his patients. The two had been the closest friends since he had first met her years ago.

"You are late, master healer. I held my best room for you for over a week and lost some customers because of you." Arachnia teased lightly, upholding the longstanding joke since Ratchet had first demanded a cot in her dining room during his first visit. With a grin she enfolded Ratchet in a grateful, friendly embrace.

"My apologies, my services are in high demand." Ratchet teased back before sagging and sighed tiredly as he looked at the femme with exhausted optics, "Did the council send for me?"

"Yes, Springer got them to convene immediately. They're waiting in the city center, Brawn has a heated carriage for you." Arachnia hugged Ratchet once more before shooing him off to the town meeting.

* * *

><p>"Here, try this one." A black hand set a small cube of pale energon at Sunstreaker's elbow.<p>

"It smells like high grade." Optics narrowed in cold calculation Sunstreaker studied Sideswipe's optics as he gingerly shoved the cube away. His mouth still burned in agony from the high grade earlier. It wouldn't kill him, not even drinking a full cube would kill him. But it hurt like slag.

"That's the point! If it smells like high grade then we can drink it and blend in. Ratchet won't question why we don't celebrate midwinter with everyone else because it will _look_ like we are." Sideswipe retorted in exasperation. "I've already tried it. I'm fine."

"You mean idiotic? Then yes, you're fine. I'm not touching it." Arched optic ridges challenged Sideswipe to question him.

"You're the idiot." The red figure growled, dipping two fingers into the energon before pinning Sunstreaker against the table they shared in the suite and forced his fingers into his twin's mouth. "There, no burns." He pulled his fingers out of Sunstreaker's mouth as swiftly as he could, keeping his digits from being bitten and danced swiftly away from the furious and tense figure of his brother.

"Slaggar!" Sunstreaker roared lunging at his twin before halting mid swing. "It actually tastes good."

Arms raised in supplication for strength Sideswipe palmed his face. "Of course it tastes good. I. Made. It. Now will you quit being such a femme-bot and drink it."

"No, you put your fingers in it." Sunstreaker refused disdainfully, turning back to the table and the small painting he had been working on. One that Sideswipe had been at great pains to avoid, knowing that if he so much as bumped it he'd be spending the next three weeks slowly regenerating after being torn apart.

Midstep Sunstreaker dismissed his glamour, allowing the sun kissed golden yellow color to fade from his plating replaced by his true sun gold hue. The pale blue of his optics deepened and shifted becoming a dangerous deep violet. "Do you really want us to hide like this forever?" Anguished optics looked to Sideswipe, pleading for hope that they could cease to pretend to be mortals.

Sideswipe sighed tiredly, hand waving absently as his own glamour faded leaving his plating bloody crimson, his optics a slightly lighter shade of violet. "Do you want to tell Ratchet that the monsters that nearly drank him dry have been following him for three weeks? That we're hiding in his room? That _you've_ been attempting to seduce him? Really bro, you're gonna chase him away."

Sunstreaker snarled, "And you'll let him slip away while you chase credits and seek to blend in with the chattel suited for feeding us."

"So Ratchet's okay, as long as we can feed off of him once in a while, but everyone else, everyone he protects, he loves, they're free for the taking? He'll hate us. We take one life, _one_ Sunny and he'll send us to our graves."

"We can't be killed, moron. How many tried? Our own master attempted to kill us and couldn't." Sunstreaker leaned against the wooden table, scrutinizing the painting before him. It was an image of Pax Crystalia inundated with the blizzard from earlier. Ratchet stood in the center of the storm unaffected by the snarling gale surrounding him that bent street signs and distant trees with its force. It showed the healer's strength, his resolve and every aspect of that surly persona that had attracted their attention from his first invasion in their thoughts ten years ago that seemed like yesterday.

"Do you remember the first time we felt him?" Sunstreaker asked softly, staring into the painting with desperate longing.

Sideswipe nodded and sighed, they had had this conversation almost nightly since their release by Ratchet's hand from their eternal prison. "We almost killed him." Sideswipe breathed morosely, that fact kept haunting them. They needed Ratchet, his strength and grounded ferocity. They wanted to be close to him, and because of their actions – and a two millennia old curse – they had to hide what they truly were from the world, from him.

"We stopped, thank Primus we stopped, in time to keep from killing him." Sunstreaker finally sagged, grabbing the despised cube of energon and finally taking a deep swig.

"Sunny –"

"Don't call me that."

"How is the wax holding out?" Sideswipe asked, changing the topic and ignoring his brother.

"Not well. Master never taught us the spell to make it. We'll have to leave Ratchet in less than a week if we can't get more." Sunstreaker sighed, both hung their heads. They could only stay in the damaging sunlight with Ratchet because of the special wax their master had given them before they had left for their last hunting spree. Now, with it almost gone, they would have to leave the healer and fade into the night once more.

"He's coming." Sideswipe tensed, and both erected their guises, allowing the cheery red and sun kissed yellow to cover their more infamous colors.

"Primus," Ratchet sighed as he entered the room tiredly, wishing he had been able to just drop his journal in the town leaders' laps and let them read the sordid details from Steeldale, Coldsteel Garrison and Healer's Wrath. Instead they had made him explain everything three times over. Now, Ratchet just wanted a warm energon ration and his bed. He looked up from his pedes from where he had leaned tiredly against the door freezing when he saw the brothers standing in the suite's sitting room. "You're still here?" He asked blankly.

For a moment he stared at them, his processors spinning as he tried to remember where he had seen them, the names they went by and why the slag he had a suite instead of the small room with a cot he usually argued Arachnia into instead of a room he might see for only a few hours.

"Madame Arachnia wanted us to keep an optic on you." The red mech grinned at Ratchet.

That grin, the memories came back and Ratchet huffed. "I know I'm stuck with you slagging idiots. I'm tired, I don't want to deal. Just let me grab a ration and I'll crash. You two can have the main berth." Ratchet collapsed onto the couch, leaning against the arm rest. His spark beat wildly within his chest now that he could actually look at them. They were gorgeous. He swallowed nervously as he moved his optics through the room, hiding his nerves by scowling his exhaustion.

"Yup, still here." The red one grinned easily, spark swelling as he felt the healer's nerves, fed off the awe radiating from the kinder spark at their beauty and preened under the scrutiny. "They only gave us one berth."

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe smiled their most seductive smiles at Ratchet as he spluttered, turning on them in trepidation masked with fury. "She did what? I will personally make 'Arachnia pay for this." Optics darkened with rage, Ratchet snarled, his lip components forming a perfect petulant pout that seemed to highlight the dark chevron on his brow and dark cobalt compassionate optics that brimmed with tired rage and self recrimination.

"The nurse said you should stay warm for the next few days." Sideswipe grinned wider, approaching Ratchet calmly.

"And we make great berth warmers." Sunstreaker whispered into Ratchet's audio from behind, sending a delightful thrill down the medic's relays. A thrill that echoed within their own frames exciting them further in want of the smaller healer.

"A – are you two seriously coming on to me?" Ratchet snapped with a shaky voice. He didn't want romance; he couldn't afford to get close to anyone, especially not now. The instant he had awoken in the keep's infirmary he had sensed the presence of the nightwalkers from Coldsteel Garrison, could sense the violent pair who had killed an entire city full of armed Decepticon warriors and – and took his own vilest wishes of violence against others and made them reality.

They were close, probably watching them now. Ratchet couldn't endanger the brothers, the pair was so full of life. They could get killed because of him, and he couldn't live with that.

"And if we are?" Ratchet couldn't tell who had spoken. Yet, somehow Sideswipe had gotten right in front of him without his realizing – and Ratchet was trapped between the glorious, beautiful, _warm_ pair. It had been a few years since he had last taken any offers for a shared night in a berth. Ratchet was torn between desire, that building longing for the pair so willingly in his personal space, and protecting the beautiful idiots.

"You just met me this morning. Do you really want to hop into the first berth you come across?" Part of Ratchet's processors laughed at his throaty excuse, he'd bedded down others after knowing them for one drink.

"We've watched you longer than that." Sideswipe purred, gently kissing Ratchet's jaw just below his audio as Ratchet shivered torn between his spark and his processors.

"We passed through Healer's Wrath and heard of a healer traveling alone." Sunstreaker whispered against the back of Ratchet's neck, gently nibbling along the sensitized cables there.

"We've passed through towns that could only speak of your greatness." Hands found Ratchet's most sensitive seams through the fabric of his shirt and through the thick canvass of his trousers. "We never thought we'd actually get you."

"You haven't gotten me." Ratchet swallowed a moan as he pulled away from the pair. "I'm exhausted, and I start early tomorrow." He pulled the thick rose bear cloak off, collapsing onto the couch while throwing the long cloak over his frame as a blanket and effortlessly fell into exhausted recharge.

"We should rest." Sideswipe murmured as they watched the deeply recharging healer. Nodding, Sunstreaker scooped up Ratchet, moving to the berth in the far back room. With gentleness that only Sideswipe had before witnessed, Sunstreaker laid Ratchet carefully upon the berth, then slipped from his clothes to snuggle beside him. Sideswipe shook his head at Sunstreaker, stripping down to his thick leggings before snuggling against Ratchet's other side. With the warmth of Ratchet's frame between them and the soft hum of his systems filling the room the pair fell into a deep recharge.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** I own nothing, sadly enough. This was a prompt initially suggested by DeathStallion on DeviantArt, and suggested on the twins-x-ratch group on livejournal by chimeradark. (Thank you both for giving me this infuriatingly long winded plot bunny.)

* * *

><p><em>Listen healer, and listen well for there will be times when you must choose, who live and others of whom you will loose. And, healer there will come a time when you wonder at the pain you cannot suppress if your gift was truly meant to curse or bless ...<em>

Morning came too soon for Ratchet, pulling him from his slumber before sunrise. He leaned firmly into the warm berth beneath him – berth? He sat up with a start staring in quickly spreading horror at Sunstreaker's perfectly sculpted and utterly bare aft displayed unconsciously beside him. With trembling hands he felt over his body relaxing only after he had encountered all his clothes. He sighed, optics off lining in relief. He had not interfaced with the beautiful pair – one nude and the other mostly so. Ratchet trailed his optics over Sideswipe's exposed upper chassis, the mech, like his brother, was beautiful. Broad shoulders and perfectly designed chest highlighted the careful artistry that had gone into the red mech's making.

They looked so peaceful, ageless and perfect. They glowed in a way that made Ratchet think of a freshly grown youngling new to his full height and armor. They had saved him yesterday as well. He owed them his life, the thought was not a pleasant one. As he sat up leaning on his elbows he slowly felt the stirrings of affection for the pair in the depths of his spark and for the first time since leaving Healer's Wrath, he could not feel the nightwalkers he had loosed there.

Distantly, from outside he heard the first stirrings of the early shift workers heading off to the energon warehouses and mills that outlined the vast city. It was time for him to move. With one last lingering look that bordered on hungering after them, he slipped off the bed and out into the pre-dawn gloom.

The morning beyond the inn was still dark. Night lamps glowed through the darkness, dotting the darkened city with miniature bluish orbs of light. Early workers heading towards the energon work houses, weavers and carters all slowly shuffled in ones and twos through the empty streets. Ratchet moved with them, a recurring face as welcome as the winter after a long hot summer.

Here, in the city where thousands lived he was greeted exuberantly by many. The early folks nodded their greetings as they went on their way, all knowing that with Ratchet's arrival the doubts over surviving the winter would fade. He was the annual celebrity. Smiling as he moved through the streets, loving his work and grateful that he had earned this position he turned from the main road heading deeper into the slum district.

He would have to stay here for several days at least to tour the hospitals and care wards in the various temples and churches. He treated the poor, the destitute, and those who were proclaimed incurable by the healers in residence if he could.

"Master Healer!" He looked up to the welcoming call, smiling at the swiftly approaching priest of the High Temple of Primus. "We had heard of your belated arrival. Your tardiness has worried many greatly."

"Father Huffer," Ratchet smiled while embracing the smaller mech, "It's been a strange winter."

"Come, you can fill me in while we walk the ward." Huffer led Ratchet into the mercy ward of the high temple. "Our year has been mercifully mild. Despite our difference in beliefs the recent influx of Decepticon faithful has given us a reprieve from the annual plight against the nightwalkers. Their warrior ranks have fought off several incursions we could not have faced alone."

"Have there been many?" Suddenly nervous, Ratchet looked hard at Huffer, the fear of the nightwalkers he had awakened building within his spark.

"Of nightwalker attacks, more than usual and all rebuffed. Of the Decepticons a full six score settled within our walls, bringing word and dire warning of nightwalkers infiltrating mortal villages descending as a veritable horde of frauds. They now have their own temple by the docks with its own care ward. They're good mechs, mostly, although there are a few in their ranks that I would gladly cast out to the snow and pray they found better lives elsewhere."

Ratchet sighed, wondering how the nightwalker led Decepticons had infested the true believers of Coldsteel Garrison. As he looked over destitute mechs suffering cold related ailments and malnutrition he began to fill the priest in on his misadventures early in the season.

* * *

><p>Sunstreaker frowned in the darkness as Ratchet left the room. The healer had been attracted to their guises, not who they were. The yellow mech looked to the door the healer had passed through and vented wearily. Beside Sunstreaker Sideswipe curled in on himself, knowing that their hopes of winning Ratchet's affections for who they were was laughably small and dwindling by the day.<p>

"We need to find an apothecary." Sideswipe murmured from his ball of misery. Both nightwalkers could feel the wax made before their banishment into the dark isolation of their prison crumbling from their frames. There was little enough left, and what remained had decomposed since Ratchet had freed them.

"There should be one in the warehouse district." Sunstreaker murmured as he turned to embrace his brother and settled to sleep again. Their exposure to the high grade and artificial sunlight the day before had taxed their systems. Now they could only rest and recover as much as they could before touching up their subpar wax and heading out into the treacherous sun once more.

* * *

><p>The sun finally graced the eastern sky, tinting the perfect dawn a light rose hue that seamlessly bled into vaulting blue over the snow bedecked city. Ratchet took in the crisp, frigid morning air and sighed. It was time to visit the Decepticon temple. He turned from the High Temple to the southernmost section of the city, the dark seedy region he usually avoided at all costs, knowing that he would likely face violence he would rather avoid.<p>

Ratchet mused as he paced the city streets that he was one of the few healers who had armor worthy of a warrior. His armor was light, strong and better at bending with a blow that blunting one with base thickness. His creators had never let him downgrade his armor when he decided as a half grown youngling to be a healer instead of a hunter. It was an enforcement he silently thanked them for annually.

As he approached the dark blight of the deepest slums he stood taller, making his frame look more intimidating. He was not a coward, despite how often he called himself one for his lack of action in Coldsteel Garrison. Being the creation of two powerful hunters Ratchet had been schooled in fighting since his core programming had set in. Chromia had gifted him with his first weapon while 'Hide had given him his best tools for surviving the nightwalkers as a non-hunter.

"Oh look, mechs, the noble healer has come to visit." A deep voice chuckled from the early morning shadows. Ratchet stilled, smothering the reflex to flinch in startlement, looking defiantly up at the large mech that stepped into his path. Tall, bristling with weapons and garbed in the nondescript grayed brown leather of all villains the mech slited red optics dangerously at Ratchet.

"Let me pass." Ratchet warned, tanks churning in silent anticipation as six more mechs stepped from the shadows to surround him.

"Or what?" the mech sneered behind the large silver face plate that did nothing to mask his evil.

"Or we'll make you." A dangerous voice rumbled from behind Ratchet before he could retort. The thugs filling the street shifted their gazes from Ratchet to the voice behind him.

"And what can you do, pretty bot?" A second thug asked, his purple plating and blackened denta reeking with decay even as he leered repulsively at the new mech.

Ratchet never looked behind him, only keeping focus on the four mechs in front of him, watching their dual shot crossbows and long knives warily. He did not recognize the voice, it wasn't Sunstreaker and didn't sound like Sideswipe, nor was it any of the guards he knew. Which, he admitted warily to himself meant that the speaker behind him could be a savior – or an even worse opponent.

A deep growl filled the air, stilling the thugs who all now watched Ratchet's unknown and dubious savior with wary intent. Once their attention was thoroughly on the other mech Ratchet launched himself at the shorter purple mech beside the intimidating leader, soundly slamming his fist into the other's face with the satisfying shattering crack of denta breaking. Ratchet rolled from the other, losing his cloak and satchel as he faced a second mech who charged him with magenta hands swinging perilously close to the medic's optics.

Ratchet sidestepped and backpedaled, moving as fast as he could from his opponent. This mech was a damned good fighter, and Ratchet knew with a sinking spark that if he faced more than two at a time he would surely be terminated. With a calculated effort Ratchet feinted a left hook, and reeled when the other mech's fist cracked against his chin sending him staggering backwards.

As he stumbled Ratchet turned his backwards momentum into energy for a new attack, charging his opponent and swinging with measured force his fist – passed right through where his opponent should have been. Ratchet froze at the end of his swing cycling his optics much like a cyber-owl as fear of daylight walking nightwalkers filled his processors until a strangled gasp drew his attention to the side.

The other mech dangled from Sunstreaker's grasp, the yellow hand about his neck making sensitive plating creak dangerously. With a grunt of distaste and a final squeeze that knocked the thug into stasis the yellow mech tossed his opponent to the pile where the entire group of thugs, save the one Ratchet knocked out cold, lay unconscious.

"He called me pretty." Sunstreaker snarled affronted as if such a slight were worthy of so complete a trouncing.

"Relax Sunshine, they won't make that mistake again." Sideswipe smirked at his brother from where he stood against a warehouse wall watching the show.

"Of course not," Sunstreaker agreed, "I am exquisite – And _don't_ call me Sunshine."

Ratchet gaped at the pair torn between admiration for Sunstreaker's skill, self preserving fear for that same skill and utter dismay. "You did all this," he gestured to the pile of mechs, "Because that foul get called you pretty?"

"No," Sideswipe replied as he walked up to Ratchet worriedly tracing the fine crack that slowly oozed along the medic's cheek, "Stinky paid for maligning my brother, the rest for threatening you."

Ratchet looked from the gleaming pair dressed in obviously new clothes bedecked with the newest in masculine ruffles along the chest and wrists, to the dark alley he still had to pass through. Swallowing his pride with bitter resentment Ratchet looked back up to the pair with grim resignation. There were more like those piled nearby and despite his heritage and training; he was no match for the brothers. "Can I get an escort?" The request cost him a blow to his pride. He was hunter created and hunter trained up to the day he took on his full crosses. Only the drain on his time and resources had prevented from keeping those skills up to par.

"Why are you here anyways?" Sunstreaker asked in his almost bored voice, "These _exhaust residues_ thrive in this filth."

"There's a new mercy ward on the dock that sees to the workers there. I have to ensure any treated there are healed properly."

"Why?" Sunstreaker asked bluntly, coldly challenging Ratchet's movements, unstable pale blue optics piercing through Ratchet's soul, seeming to claim what he saw for his own.

Ratchet huffed, "Because as the Imperial Healer to his Majesty Emperor Prime of the Steele sector it is my duty to inspect each care ward and healer in each city and village _and_ to offer my services to all those in need within and nearby that district."

"Wow, so you're someone important?" Sideswipe chirruped brightly, turning Ratchet and scooping the healer's cloak and satchel into his arms. "You need to get that cleaned up."

Ratchet felt his cheek, winching when his fingers touched the painful, and previously unnoticed crack. Scowling and muttering darkly Ratchet reached into his satchel, pulling his emergency kit to clean and seal his wound. Once a light sealant had dried over it he looked back up to the silent pair, "It's nothing, can we go now?"

"Why are you not provided an escort?" Sunstreaker asked, suddenly filling Ratchet's vision as the larger mech carefully inspected the healer's face while pulling the thick cloak over the slightly shivering healer.

"I can handle myself against nightwalkers and darklings, all of which have weaknesses that I am fully prepared and trained to exploit, but mortals are another story." Ratchet huffed turning from Sunstreaker's gaze to the deeper portions of the warehouse district. "And, I'm out of practice." He looked one last time at the mounded pile of unconscious thugs. The morning patrol would find a strange gift when they passed here today.

Sideswipe chuckled, "You mean the night demons all have physical weaknesses, ones that few mortals share."

"That sums it up nicely," the healer sighed darkly. His creators would be weeping for his lack of fighting prowess – and then tanning his metal hide to get him back in shape.

"Your armor is adequate for a healer on standard fighting lines." Sunstreaker murmured, "Your gear is not the issue, your lack of hand to hand combat is."

"And that," Sideswipe spoke up matching Ratchet's pace, "Is our specialty."

The trio fell silent as they moved past the mid sector warehouses with their large draft-bot entrances to a thick strip of slum housing that was little more than single mech hovels with enough room to slide one's frame in, recharge and slide back out. The mechs desperate enough to dwell here found other locations for all other activities, including the base interfacing that ran rampant through this sector resulting in the half feral younglings that roamed the streets in packs.

There was no talking here, where every mech scurried and hunched, bringing no attention to themselves lest it be the wrong kind. Femmes and mechs looked similar enough in design that telling them apart was difficult. Some rare guards prowled around the outer perimeter of this benighted place, but none would enter save for a string of murders and even then they would come in force.

Ratchet, however traveled with his very brightly colored companions, all three standing proud and tall much like offerings for the take. He could feel the optics of every hidden mech and wild youngling measuring their strength against their worth. Despite Sunstreaker's skill in incapacitating the gang Ratchet had faced, he had no surety that those skills would save them here.

"Healer, pray thee, come this way. This district is not for the likes of you and yours." A humble voice spoke out of a side street, revealing itself to be a pair of small mechs bearing the Decepticon crest on their tabards. They walked tall and proud in this desperate place much as the taller trio did, only here the Decepticons were not looked upon as marks.

They followed in silence, following the small pair to a bright patch along the frozen river were ice barges traveled up and down bearing the trade the normal ships would bring once the ice melted. Here, where more warehouses and businesses seemed to spring up in a jarring separation of dangerous slum to prosperous shipping district.

Sunstreaker appraised the road they now traveled in, tall buildings towered over the street, most of them multistoried warehouses, some businesses and no few upper story living units for shopkeepers or tenants. Part of his processors thought back to the last time he and his brother had passed through this town, only back then it had been little more than a country village.

Neither knew how long they had been imprisoned. The passage of time beyond the stones that bounded their captivity had changed the world entirely. The passing of warehouses and mechs calling greeting passed Sunstreaker's notice. Instead, he thought back to when this had been a small village of several scant cottages and their prison a lone chapel lost in to woods to be forever forgotten.

"This is a fine temple," Ratchet's voice pulled Sunstreaker's attention to the low building squatting between two of the tallest and grandest shipyard warehouses. A tall spire graced with the clear sphere that represented the spark of Primus reached towards the heavens while the building below, comprised of local metals squatted pail and humble with open doors to the faithful, poor, hungry and injured. Sunstreaker glared at the building, optics sighting on the hated Decepticon symbol that was unknown before his and Sideswipe's awakening.

"Come on, Brother Sun Storm is attending the injured today," one of their small guides spoke up, "He'll take care of ya."

Sunstreaker looked from the diminutive mech to Ratchet and suppressed a venting of exasperation as the healer marched forward without a proper inspection around the perimeter for threats, assailants, or shadow hugging nightwalkers. _:: Trusting, isn't he? ::_

_:: He's too easy! Sure go in, don't suspect danger around every corner. If he did that back in our time he'd be dead several times over by now. ::_ Sideswipe replied, although his slight smirk gave none of away none of his frustration or worry for the healer.

Despite their concerns the pair followed Ratchet, pacing silently through the open chapel where prayers were conducted and through a small corridor that branched off to presumably quarters for the clergy to live in, and a second hall that led to a rather quiet infirmary.

"Ah, my favorite disciples, Rumble, Frenzy, who have you brought me?" A slender mech asked with his back turned to the trio.

"Brother Sun Storm, he got hurt in the dark slum." Rumble replied easily. "_They_ took out Sixshot's gang. _He_ got Oil Slick in one hit, he's pretty good for a healer."

"Ah, so the great Master Healer is more than a mere mech of tending the sick and injured. I am impressed." Brother Sun Storm finally stood from his patient, looking from the stasis bound mech with a crushed leg to Ratchet, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.

Flanking Ratchet Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stiffened once the golden palated priest turned to face them. He was tall, very lean and upon his back, hidden beneath his robes as ungainly lumps along his back, were wings. Orange optics only heard of in legend looked out from a pale gray face with a narrow nasal structure and thin, nearly lifeless lips. "_Lus na Fala_" Sideswipe whispered, the ancient words breathed almost as a ward of evil.

Sun Storm smiled at the red mech, optics gleaming knowingly. "Ah, so you know of my kind. How unusual. Normally we are whispered of as mountain spirits or faeries of the mists."

Ratchet froze, optics wide and bright as the words sunk in and long ago lessons on the darklings of old resurfased. "Primus, you're a glenn fae, one of the yarrow sprites." His fingers wove an ancient sign of warding, a sign long known by hunters.

"Well taught, and hunter trained, more impressive yet, young healer." Sun Storm smiled approvingly. "if my nature is not too daunting for you, would you aid me in tending this mech's leg. Unfortunately mortal healing is not my specialty."

"Uh," Ratchet swallowed nervously looking from the sprite priest Sun Storm to the miniature disciples Rumble and Frenzy to his only salvation in this macabre collection of mechs to Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. "Sure." He stood taller and strode to the patient, 'Just don't steal my soul or sing my spirit into eternal slumber,' Ratchet thought as he knelt beside the patient.

"This is less of a crush and more of a clean cut. The leg will need to be replaced – slag." Ratchet curshed finally remembering that his best replacement limb fabricator was once more safely ensconced in Goldstone Sanctuary far from this city and the unforgiving sun. "Well, it would be easy if my brother were here. He'd have a new leg assembly ready within the day."

"Master Healer, despite the reputation my kind have earned, we care deeply for the lives of others. If your brother would enable Broadwater to regain his full functioning I would gladly fetch him." Sun Storm looked Ratchet deep in the optics, sincereity rolling of of him in near tangible waves.

Ratchet huffed, "Prowl's going to kill me."

"You know Prowl?" Sun Storm asked in surprise, "How do you know of a nightwalker that is yet living?"

"Because he has sworn off feeding on the living, and my brother trusts him." Ratchet sighed, "My brother is the nightwalker Wheeljack."

"Hey, Stormy, Father Huffer said you might have work for me." An all to familiar voice called from the rear of the healing ward. "You in here – Oh, hey Ratchet."

"'Jack." Ratchet nodded, "How do you know this yarrow sprite?"

"Uh – he's a friend of a friend?" Jack replied, voice nervous.

"Get over here," Ratchet barked with a huff, drawing 'Jack to the patient while explaining the assembly he needed and tended to the more grevious of hurts. "How are you not par broiled?"

"Pax Crystalia was built over several ancient cities. Prowl discovered the tunnels that remain of the old cities long ago and now we patrol them." Audio fins flashed merrily as he worked, slowly disassembling the ruined leg to obtain the exact measurement for the replacement. "This entire area once was a massive city called Minthril. About ten thousand years ago a demon known only as 'the beast' brought elementals to take over the city. Instead, they destroyed it."

Ratchet blinked as he worked, "Was that demon related to the beast of Kanon?"

"They're one and the same." Sun Storm spoke up finally, "And he was never a demon, only a very powerful and now very old nightwalker. He was also a very dangerous one from the beginning. Most nightwalkers were too proud to breed with non nightwalker or mortal partners, but he would. He sired young with those of the Primus veil, lycans, werewolves, darklings and fae. His worst were an unstable pair known as Runamuck and Runabout. His best, and unfortunately his most misunderstood were Spin-out and Skid-Out. Both pairs were colored crimson and gold, so, when the foolish priest Alpha Trion sought to make himself the next Pope he captured the wrong pair. Spin-Out and his brother were sealed for all eternity while Runamuch and _his_ insane brother roamed free."

"What do you mean, most misunderstood?" Sideswipe asked from where he and Sunstreaker leaned against the infirmary wall.

"I met them once, long ago, they were still small. They had been raised in cages, split spark twins sealed in small isolation boxes when they were not tearing apart mechs and beasts of all types in gladiator rings. The pair, born of a Primus veil lycan and their nightwalker sire, held a great resistance to high grade. They could drink it with minimal burns, could ingest energon laced with cold iron and silver. Their only weakness was sunlight. As lycans are kept from transforming by daylight, so they had no immunity to its rays. If they were ever caught outside they would become ash.

"However, despite their trained cruelty, and cold upbringing they had sparks. They were good younglings, and hopefully grew up into good mechs. Yes, once they grew older they followed their master's will and killed, turned innocents into ghouls and even bit one of the noble Iacon family. However, they never raped, they never killed for fun. And, since they were heavily controlled by their master their sins could easily be layed at the feet of the beast with them as little more than weapons."

Sun Storm sighed, "I wish they could be freed, others of my kind, normally slaughtered by nightwalkers as we can counter their curse were left alone by the pair. They never hurt any _Lus na Fala_," he looked to Ratchet with a kind smile, "Or any of your '_Dubhan ceann chòsach_'."

"Any of my what?" Ratchet asked blankly, processors spinning furiously as he tried to recall such a name.

"Children of the Earth, known as the dawn fae." Sunstreaker replied looking straight at Ratchet, "They have optics as green as new grass, they live forever, care only for others and can heal any wound."

"Dawn fae?" Wheeljack scoffed, "Primus that's a good one, that was a myth in the time of the first Primes."

"No, not a myth." Sun Storm replied gently, "They are few, yes, but they exist. I was friends with an entire clan until one of their young was stolen by nightwalkers twenty-eight years ago."

The yarrow sprite's words stunned 'Jack. Dawn fae were the only natural enemy the nightwalkers had. Dawn fae were life incarnate, capable of reverting the long changed nightwalkers back into mortals. Capable of overcoming the nightwalker's kiss – those words brought back words he had not thought on in the month since he had last seen his brother.

"_Yup, definitely your son." Hound spoke, nodding to 'Hide and Chromia. "He smells like you, regardless of the change."_

'_Jack stared at the green mech, audio indicators flashing in an uncomfortable strobing effect, "That's impossible. I'm adopted."_

Those words from the green infiltrator on their swift ride to the former Steeldale still haunted him, only the story his creators had told him after Ratchet had left disturbed him more, and now with great reason.

"'_Jack," Chromia called softly in the early dawn after Ratchet's frame had vanished down the road, "We need to tell you something." His femme creator shifted nervously, uncertainty radiating from the normally calm features._

"_Son, what Hound said, 'bout you bein' our son by spark, he was tellin' the truth." Ironhide moved his gaze from the distant trees that masked Ratchet's path and finally met Wheeljack's optics, "You were stolen from us soon after you were sparked. One of our last hunts had come back ta haunt us. A 'walker had slipped us an' sole ye."_

"_What your creator isn't sayin' is that when I found out I was with spark we gave up hunting. We wanted our younglin' ta be safe and free from the fear of our prey. That one stole you and for nearly a decade we searched, looking for a husk of a frame. _

"_Then we found another den, one with a turned younglin' lavender optics and a pearlescent white frame. We thought it was you." Chromia cupped the masked face gruffly, the closest to coddling either of her sons she ever offered. "We fought them and saved the youngling, only when he saw us his optics turned blue."_

_Wheeljack looked at Chromia stunned. It was impossible for a nightwalker to become mortal, and only those freshly turned could revert if their makers were slain within the week of changing. "That was Ratchet?"_

"_Yes, he came with us and as he grew had no memories of the nightwalkers or being stolen by them. By the time we found you, still the same tiny youngling you had been when you were taken from us, he had become our son. We wanted to slay you. For being a nightwalker, but Ratchet wouldn't let us. He wanted a brother and you were so tiny he felt he could teach you to stop hunting._

"_Ratchet is why you still live. And, he assumed we were adopting you. The story worked for everyone who knew us, that we had adopted a nightwalker youngling to try to train it from huntin'." Chromia smiled sadly. _

"_But when we moved to the city no one would trust a nightwalker and that was when Ratchet started going to the medical academy." Wheeljack remembered, thinking back with a small smile on how he had begun biting his brother to make him change. He had wanted nothing else than to keep his brother with him forever. That was when they had discovered Ratchet was immune._

_Sighing, Wheeljack lowered his face mask revealing his perfect face plating that made him a very hansome nightwalker. "You didn't tell either of us to keep us safe. I can't say I understand, but I'll try." With that Jack smiled at his parents, his soft grin revealing the gaps in his denta where Ratchet had pulled his fangs out after being bitten once too many._

"_They never grew back?" Ironhide asked with a chuckle._

"_Nope, number one rule with Ratchet, don't bite the healer."_

_Chromia laughed, "I thought that was 'never frag the healer off."_

'_Jack nodded, "Biting frags him off, same difference."_

"Primus 'Jack! Watch what you're doing!" Ratchet snarled, shoving 'Jack from the patient they were working on. Refocusing his optics on what he had been doing Wheeljack stared in horror at the stripped wires he had crossed that now arced electricity violently across the unintended join that shorted vital circuits leading the mech's spinal struts.

Ratchet moved like lightning, disconnecting the power source to the lower extremities and immediately shunting past the damaged plating, rerouting vital power lines around the damaged area to prevent necrosis to the remaining leg. Finger moving with deft certainty Ratchet's maneuvers had even Brother Sun Storm's optics widening in surprise. No mortal should be able to move that fast.

'Jack clung to that thought even as he moved the yarrow sprite to give Ratchet more room. 'No mortal should be able to move as fast as Ratchet does with a patient, yet he does. No mortal should be immune to the nightwalker's kiss, yet he is.' The nightwalker shifted nervously watching his brother move with nervous optics.

_:: His optics ::_ Sunstreaker nudged his brother across the bond, both training their gazes on Ratchet's slowly changing optics – cobalt blue that shifted into the rarest of optic colors, becoming green. The rich pale green of new grass, darkened with the deep verdant hue of long lived evergreen. Those optics held the intense gaze Ratchet always trained on the twins, one they would do anything to keep on them.

_:: Dubhan ceann chòsach, Dawn fae, Children of the Earth, Eternal Healers :: _Sideswipe's mental voice was barely a whisper, _::He's one, he's immortal. :: _The glee that came with his words infected Sunstreaker's half of their shared spark making the pair grin madly despite Ratchet's frantic fight to save a life, _he's __immortal_.

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><p><strong>AN: **The weird names for the dawn fae and yarrow sprites are real Scottish Galic plant name for Yarrow and Self-Heal AKA Heart o' the Earth. Any strange mech names come straight from , so there are no OC's here.

... Oh what tortures to put upon our favorite trio next ...


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: This was done as a prompt from livejournal inspired by **chimeradark **and **DeathStallion**. Please review!

Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly enough.

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><p><em>Gather younglings, for long ago a clan of fae lived hidden deep within the distant ancient lands. Pilgrims sought them for miracles, hunters sought them for treasure, and any caught by these fae never returned again. Yet, some, those rare few who sought nothing for themselves found safety beyond their borders and long life free of ill health. However, those travelers who sought the clan for their own gain ended cursed with long life and lingering ill health.<em>

_So hearken younglings and remember well the Clan o' the Earth, the Dawn Clan should never be trifled with, and never, ever angered. For, though they show a kindly face their spirits hold a terrible wrath … _

Ratchet sagged from the berth he had tended, back aching and legs trembling with exhaustion. The dock worker, the mech named Broadwater, had finally been stabilized from Wheeljack's fingers fumbling in a stripped circuit. The mech would live – Ratchet stared at the leg as his optics reset in shock at the figure before him – and the leg that had needed replacing was now whole.

Ratchet felt his neck plating freeze just over his spinal strut. That leg had been utterly destroyed, only usable as a template for replacements and yet the mech gleamed as if newly formed. "'Jack?" Ratchet croaked, his voice pinched with shock and staticky from borderline terror. "How long – how long have I been working?" He looked, with wide optics slowly fading from verdant green to cobalt blue, to his brother, pleading for an answer that would dispel this nightmare.

'Jack could only hold Ratchet's gaze and try not to be afraid of his not-older brother. "It's just now dusk. You _healed_ him, Ratch."

"That's impossible." The healer breathed, scared optics leaving 'Jack's to look once more upon the now recharging Broadwater. "It takes a full day just to build a new assembly –"

"Your hands made his lines and plating as soft fibers unraveling and reweaving his very being into a leg hale and complete. You are very powerful, _dubhan ceann ch__ò__sach_, far more powerful than any have been in mortal memory." Sun Storm praised.

"I'm not a fae!" Ratchet roared hoarsely, turning on the ethereally glowing yarrow sprite posing as a mortal cleric. "I'm mortal! I was raised a mortal by _my_ carrier and creator to be a hunter! _I am not a fae!_"

"Uh, Ratch," Wheeljack spoke up hesitantly, "That's not quite correct." With a mind to how much space remained between him and his brother Wheeljack edged back slightly as he quickly filled in Ratchet on Hound's scenting 'Hide and Chromia as 'Jack's creators, the truth of their creators finding Ratchet in a cave after terminating its nightwalker inhabitants a full decade after 'Jack had been stolen as a sparkling, and Ratchet's optics changing from nightwalker violet to mortal blue upon his rescue those many vorns ago.

"I'm adopted?" Ratchet asked, optics unfocused while his face fell into utmost loss. "I'm adopted. They adopted me – _and they never told _me_ a fragged thing!_" Ratchet howled in rage while his optics dimmed with fear of what he could do and the lie he had lived. He was exhausted, still trembling and so overwrought he did not know how to feel.

His own brother, the nightwalker, cowered from him. Brother Sun Storm stood tall as if vindicated, radiating an orange hue as if heralding the triumphant fae Ratchet should have felt he had become. The miniature mechs, Rumble and Frenzy were nowhere in sight. Only, and strangely enough, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked upon him as if they understood. Their optics were stark, frank and haunted, just as he felt. And, for the first time since their awakening he was grateful as the presence of the nightwalkers he had freed made itself known within his processors. That distant presence and the beautiful brothers here, at least, had not changed.

Sideswipe finally moved as the last resounding echoes of Ratchet's cry faded and stood at the healer's side. "Come on, this place was the pits during the day. I don't want to face it at night." Ratchet could only nod dumbly, processors suddenly feeling fuzzy and unclear.

Red and yellow, the brothers led Ratchet out of the Decepticon temple, Wheeljack scrambling to follow, grateful that the sun had set enough that he no longer had to fear its damaging light. Behind them, still softly glowing like a light of hope, Sun Storm stood in the mercy ward watching the strange quartet fade into the oncoming night.

Sunstreaker led them through the city as if born to this place. His pedes never erring on which road to take and never once did they cross paths with the gangs that prowled the streets in the twilight gloaming. As they moved ever closer to Madam Arachnia's inn Ratchet fell further into his stunned melancholy. He was exhausted, which could be explained by the strange encounter with the yarrow sprite, or having his brother nearly terminate his patient – or being accused of being a – a – whatever – it was, some immortal, self sacrificing, glowing fairy of healing. He snorted softly as he trudged along the dark, snow laden streets, him a fairy? The idea was beyond laughable, it was ludicrous. He would be sick with laughter, except that he was so slagging tired.

He thought back to the last time he had been this close to collapse and could only think of Arcee, nearly ten vorns ago. Yet, that in and of itself lent credence to Sun Storm's claims. If the last time he had exhausted himself was the very time he had saved Arcee from the liquefying torture of the wood spider venom, a recovery that was not only miraculous but more so overshadowed by her perfect health ever since. Then maybe the glowing nut case had a point.

Only, Ratchet fumed as he distractedly stumbled over his own pedes, ignoring the murmured warning to watch his pedes, the soft offer of assistance and the following snarl to stay away. He didn't care right now what his brother and companions did. He was just tired and he did _not_ want to be _any_ type of fairy. Especially not some glowing fairy with strange green optics that went flitting about the countryside, free as a lark and offering its assistance to the weak and infirm with the wave of some fairy wand. That was just unnatural – and _dumb_.

"You're gonna blow a main processor there Ratch, and our creators won't like hearing that you thought yourself into a death spiral." Jack ribbed Ratchet, finally getting over his own insecurity at the changes in his brother – after all _he_ hadn't changed, only the history their parents had created for him.

"Shut it 'Jack." Ratchet huffed tiredly, wondering absently why everything was so dim when usually this time of night the lamps were so bright …

"Ratchet!" Jack cried as Ratchet suddenly shut down as if switched off by some greater force.

"Took the slagger long enough." Sunstreaker rumbled as he gathered Ratchet into his arms.

"You knew he would do that?" 'Jack asked suspiciously as they turned the final bend to the inn.

Both taller mechs looked down at 'Jack with incredulous, baleful gazes. "He performed miracle that took from sun's rising to dusk, he never fueled up and held his own in a street fight." Sideswipe spoke slowly as if to an utterly dim youngling.

"He should have gone into stasis lock hours ago." Sunstreaker filled in.

"But, he's a fae!" 'Jack protested, astonished and somewhat disappointed that Ratchet did not radiate the same spectral aura that Sun Storm had, and that his optics had looked mortal once more. He could not fathom why his – darkling sparked – brother couldn't do all he had and still take on a nightwalker horde, perform miracles throughout the night and come dawn merely proclaim he had just 'worked up an appetite.'

"He was raised to believe he was mortal, you aft!" Sunstreaker snarled at 'Jack.

"He's a fae and was found less than thirty vorns ago as a sparkling _he's young_. He won't grow into his gift until he's older and that's if he can at all!" Sideswipe paused, one hand warningly on 'Jack's shoulder, "It's hard being something, knowing that one thing all your existence, then suddenly finding yourself crashing down and realizing you're something you're not supposed to be. You can't hero worship him, he's still just your brother."

Jack made to protest the taller pair's words, but found he was strangely mute from the harrowed darkness that shone from their optics. Realization hit him like a thunderbolt from heaven. "You were not raised as merchants, were you?"

Sunstreaker snorted harshly, "No."

"Primus!" Suddenly Arachnia was in front of them in the cold snow, her velvet dress contrasting starkly against the heavily bundled mechs. "He performed another miracle?"

Jack followed the slight femme's gaze to Ratchet's exhausted face plates, and mutely nodded, suddenly feeling like a heel. Ratchet had always clung to his mortality, shoved every feat he could accomplish in Jack's face when they were younger. Forcing the nightwalker to do everything better than Ratchet could despite the younger's whining at not being able to. _"Brother, I can run creator's obstacle course and I'm mortal! There is nothing you cannot do if you just slagging do it and quit whining!" _The tough affection Ratchet had showered him with in their younger days had made the ticking time bomb of a teenage angst nightwalker into a decent mech.

"He _wove_ a mech's leg back together after a dock accident." Jack replied somberly, voice filled with awed guilt.

Arachnia only shook her head as she escorted the mechs inside. "'Jack, get into the common room, warm up and get something to drink. You two, get him to his quarters. I'll have Arcee stop by shortly."

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe moved immediately once they were able to rid themselves of Wheeljack, taking Ratchet into their shared room and lying him on the berth with gentle hands.

"Wait," Sideswipe's head suddenly popped up, "If nightwalkers are kept out of the city then how did Arachnia know Wheeljack?"

"Slag if I know." Sunstreaker dismissed his brother's concern as he gently undressed Ratchet to his small clothes. Now with only a light pair of knee breeches between Ratchet's plating and their optics the pair studied the healer's frame, both delighting at the dark red plating that showed through the thin material at Ratchet's hips.

"He's not beautiful." Sideswipe finally spoke, it was Sunstreaker's assessment, and it was true. For one who had lived his entire life looking at Sunstreaker's perfectly sculpted frame and gorgeous face Sideswipe knew true beauty. Ratchet, however, was enchanting in his unique way. Even when unconscious his smaller frame with its blocky build and sharp chevron on his brow was if not attractive then at least appealing. The off white face, sculpted so carefully would seem frail and delicate on any other, but with his other features made him attractive and imposing.

"Heh, I don't have words to describe him." Sunstreaker finally admitted, and from Sunstreaker, Sideswipe mused, that was the highest compliment. With their optics sated of admiring Ratchet's frame the pair covered the healer tenderly and curled around him over the blankets letting their meager radiant warmth cocoon their beloved healer.

* * *

><p>"Slaggit 'Jack!" Arachnia swore as she collapsed into a chair opposite of the nightwalker in the common room, "I don't know how you made your optics blue, but if your <em>guise<em> flickers for even an astrosecond Springer will know and then you'll be terminated." Her words were barely a whisper, a mere murmur of breath that was completely devoured by the inn's common room noise. Yet, Wheeljack's hearing could pick up each word clearly as if they were alone in the large room.

"What guise? I never developed that gift." Jack blinked at Arachina and suddenly both felt their plating prickle along their necks. "Then who gave it to me?"

She shook her head and made a swift warding motion with her hands, "When you first stumbled out of those tunnels five vorns ago I barely kept you alive long enough for Sentinel to come for you. Do not get yourself killed now. Primus, why do you insist each and every vorn on following your brother?"

"He kept me from becoming the bloodthirsty monster I should have been, and someday I hope to repay that favor. Someday he'll find a new childe and I'll keep that youngling from becoming a monster as well." 'Jack shrugged, "Besides, _someone's_ got to keep an optic on him with the way he overworks himself. The first vorn he had this route he came home so exhausted we all thought he would terminate in recharge. I hadn't ever seen our creators so frantic before." 'Jack trailed off and Arachnia could only shake her helm slightly with a sigh.

"We couldn't find Ratchet earlier, but a mech came into the city today looking for him, a healer named First aid."

"Did anyone come with him?" 'Jack tensed at the thought of the naive healer traveling this area alone in the dangerous winter weather.

"No, a green mech was with him up to the gates then continued on, even with the afternoon's storm coming in fast on his heels."

"There was a storm?" Jack asked blankly, optics cycling as he thought back to the thick drifts of snow they had trudged through.

"You four were lucky you had some sort of shelter, the crafters sector to the east got hit hard. We're lucky Springer's guard was available for rescue. They almost could have used Ratchet out there, would have if young First Aid had not stepped forward to help." The inn keep sighed and leaned back into her chair. "News traveled fast on his miracle, kept folks calm." Arachnia looked over her common room with a proud sigh, "Well, business doesn't run itself."

"Where's Aid staying?" Jack asked, fairly certain the youngster would appreciate a familiar face.

"End of the hall."

* * *

><p>"Awake at last?" Ratchet looked up at the familiar voice, starting to see First Aid sitting at his bedside. The younger healer's pale healer's smock framed starkly by the night dark window behind him.<p>

"I told you –"

"'To stay in Healer's Wrath, _until_ the villagers were confident in surviving the winter without a healer.'" First Aid filled in dutifully, ignoring the harsh rasp of Ratchet's voice. "They have the remaining healers from Coldsteel Garrison who had hidden with the femmes and younglings from the nightwalkers. Several survivors from Greensteel were found including a weather witch and a hedge wizard, both capable of basic treatments.

"Master, they kicked me out. They were ready to stand on their own." 'And they weren't too fond of a mere journeyman trying to tell them what to do.' Aid kept his thoughts to himself, not wishing that poor village to suffer Ratchet's wrath.

Ratchet huffed softly. He had left Aid behind, hoping to lead the nightwalkers away from his apprentice. Now, however he was back to training First Aid on the road. "Then you can make yourself useful." The master healer ground out, silently grateful that Aid had not come to harm and prayed that the nightwalkers he had unleashed would leave the journeyman healer alone.

"Hand me my journal." Ratchet signaled to the travel bag near the bed, gratefully accepting a tattered, messy leather tome from within its cluttered depths. "Here, the crimson feather marks all my notes on Pax Crystalia." He opened the massive book to the indicated page before handing it to Aid and pulled out a collapsing file for himself. "I've attended the mercy ward of Primus High Temple and a new mercy ward beyond the docks for the Decepticon Temple. Read through that section and get to work. We still have to get to Crystal Spire in two weeks."

Aid nodded, ignoring Ratchet's efficient scribbling on loose leaf sheets as he began flipping through the many pages of precise script that filled the feather light parchment of the master healer's tome. Each page was impossibly thin, yet not even the thickest ink bled through. Both sides of every page were filled with Ratchet's precise handwriting and sketches. What Aid had intended to be just a quick glance to determine the gist of what he was facing instantly altered into fascinated reading.

The history of Ratchet's route over the last five vorns lay before him, each town was defined by a distinct place marker – dried flowers, bits of colored fabric, a tuft of moss, stray feathers and twigs filled the book, all indicating a different location on the route. For each town and village his assessment of each and every healer, herbalist, midwife, surgeon, dentist and base mechanic were listed, with follow up notes from each successive visit.

The pair worked as the morning slowly brightened until the window behind Aid shone with morning's coneflower hue. "Time's up," Ratchet growled into the silence, pulling Aid from his entranced reading. "Get, you know what to do."

Aid nodded, this tome was historical record and guide book in one, allowing him to step into his master's role with ease as each major location was memorized along with its roster of healers and nurses. The journeyman healer stood resolutely from his seat beside Ratchet, donned his winter cloak of drab black fur, slipped his own healer's bag across his chest and left the room with soft, purposeful steps.

Once his apprentice left the room Ratchet let himself sag. He was too tired to even think of putting his papers back into his satchel. Yet, he was proud of his trainee. The younger mech was doing well on his own. Maybe, Ratchet mused as unconsciousness once more claimed him, leaving First Aid alone in Healer's Wrath had done the young one some good.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** … until next time.


	8. Chapter 8

This is based off a prompt on LJ. I blame ChimeraDark entirely for this. ^.~

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><p><em>Listen younglings, and listen well, for this is your only warning. Your creators told you the Nightwalkers were the only things in the darkness that could hurt you. They assured you that the darklings of the ancient tales had faded with the power of The Beast of Kaon. They were wrong …<em>

If anyone had ever told First Aid before he had embarked on his journeyman rotation that a town could radiate evil he would have laughed. Now, as he stepped through the dirty, thickly piled snow that littered the streets of Pax Crystalia he felt otherwise. Ratchet had called this the Old District in his tome-like journal, a place where outdated customs were clung to and new ways scorned – sometimes violently. Head held high, Aid moved briskly through the streets, here the snow left to gather while everywhere else it was scrapped clean.

First Aid shuddered; his pedes were not the only ones to break through the dingy snow here. Other pedes, strange in form and number, had already dented long paths through the blackened snow. He looked up from the street, optics shifting to the passing houses that only increased his rapidly mounting trepidation.

The houses were mansions on vast tracks of land, dotted here and there with tiny cottages. Despair hung heavy in the air, despair tainted with something otherworldly and unkind. Something, Aid mused, that felt like drug-hunger. He increased his pace, breath puffing faster in the frigid air. Other mechs were on the street with him, mechs dressed in peasant garb he had seen only in ancient texts from a thousand vorns ago. He passed neither shop nor inn, only bank after bank of massive tracts of private land whose masters were nowhere in sight. This road wound long and snake-like through the rural landscape that managed to hide the towering warehouse district far to the west.

Finally, hours after leaving Ratchet's berth-side he reached his eastern-most destination. The hospital, the oldest in Pax Crystalia, towered like a warning grey-black thunderhead that reached to blot out the sky. Spires and branching turrets reached like diseased branches towards the mid-day heavens, spiderlike fingers straining to grasp the winter sun.

"Unicron's Gate healing ward," First Aid read the large plaque on the massive stone wall topped with razor shape spikes designed to keep all its wards inside and unwanted visitors out. "Thanks Ratch, I love my job." He huffed, shifting his healer's pouch with its single red cross more comfortably across his shoulder and reached for the pull rope beside the sealed gate.

"We do not accept visitors." A reedy voice spoke from nowhere, First Aid's neck plating prickled with unease.

"I am Journeyman Healer First Aid, I was sent by Master Healer Ratchet to perform the annual inspection of all healing staff, patients and your facilities."

"And why has the Master Healer not graced us with his _presence_?" The same voice asked with a dangerous edge.

Aid balked only momentarily, he had been told what to say by Mistress Arachnia, but still he felt he was sealing his fate by doing so. "He is recovering in the Black Fang from performing his second miracle."

"Ah, so the rumors are true." The voice seemed to smile wickedly. Then, a mech stepped from a shadow behind the gate and looked _down_ on Aid. The mech was taller than the gate, his massive helm leaning over the lethal spikes like a youngling leaning over a small table top. "You are the same age as our Master Healer?"

"Uh, no he's my senior by two vorns." First Aid replied, once again silently awe struck that everyone considered him to be highly skilled and very intelligent for becoming a journeyman so young and yet his master had ten vorns experience on him for so small a gap in their ages.

"Enter, journeyman, our grounds are open to you." The mech smiled with needle like fangs, optics seeming to glow black in the bright daylight. Nodding the mech stepped aside, his grotesquely bent legs ending in malformed 'toes' he walked on instead of pedes. All along his frame, gleaming through the thick armor he bore, a reddish glow as if the fires of the Unmaker glowed from within his very core. "Only, young healer," the mech crouched, now suddenly First Aid's height as his legs bent in obscene angles, "Do not venture where light is absent – dark things dwell in Unicron's Gate."

First Aid nodded as he began his short trek to the massive ward, he looked back, to thank the guard and found only empty grounds. Nervously his optics looked to where the mech had stood behind the gate – and found only his own prints denting the immaculate snow. "Thank you." He murmured to the empty space moving as fast as propriety allowed to the steel doors of the keep.

Every step brought him closer to the dark shadows enveloping the keep on the cloudless day. Every step closer dropped the temperature allowing ice crystals to spread across Aid's exposed plating on his hands and face.

"Greetings, Journeyman First Aid." The massive door opened soundlessly revealing a pale pink femme in a pristine white dress standing in the doorway. Aid smiled, feeling the warmth radiate from the open door, opening his mouth to greet his host – and balked at the femme's optics, icy blue tinted violet that glowed an ethereal hue.

"Greetings." He gulped nervously.

"Fear not, young one." She smiled, her face that of a youngling, her frame reaching only his waist, "As a dhampiel I hold no threat to you."

"Dhampiel?" Aid squeaked, he looked around the massive doorway wondering just what the heck he faced.

"My mother was a mortal, my father however – was not." She smiled kindly, lips edging on sardonic, "He might have threatened your plating," She stepped back into the darkened entrance of the keep gesturing widely for the healer to enter, "And your blood."

"He was a nightwalker?" Aid asked, surprised to find his voice rock steady despite his mounting fear.

"Yes, I am Flipsides. Please, follow me." She turned into the darkness, her form fading to just her pale pink helm and shoulders of her pristine white dress. "The Master Healer must trust you implicitly to send you in his place."

"He – I hope he does." Aid replied, noting the great age that hung upon this place, and the sterile cleanliness that filled the air. "Ratchet mentioned that he had never had any issues with your ward, Lady Flipsides."

"That is good to hear," She murmured, leading the young healer further into the bowls of her keep. They toured through the many branching wards, First Aid impressed with the competence shown in the care of the many patients, every consideration tinted with Ratchet's competent care. Despite Flipside's kind presence and the skill inherent in each healer he inspected, an air of threat and danger sent silent fear trembling down his spine.

The bright early morning outside the window brightened further, becoming brilliant day and edging towards noon, and still Aid moved through the castle. He saw the healers, checked their herbal and mineral stores for medicines, approved their methods and remedies and still the corridors kept winding ever onward.

* * *

><p>"Lady Flipsides, may I beg a seat?" First Aid finally rasped in desperation as he edged towards exhaustion. "I know Master Ratchet can storm through this entire keep, test every healer and assistant and still heal several cases beyond anyone's abilities to care for, all before noon, I on the other hand am merely a very tired mortal." First Aid smiled at the petite femme who could only gesture benignly towards a chair that First Aid was positive had not been there a moment before.<p>

"Then rest, young healer. I will return to complete our tour momentarily." Lady Flipsides inclined her head regally before stepping into shadows and vanishing, leaving First Aid alone in the silent corridor.

With a sigh First Aid gratefully leaned tiredly into the chair, "How does Ratchet do this every winter? I've been here one day, seen more patients than most city healers see in a vorn and this is _one_ out of nearly twenty hospitals. He must be some sort of saint."

Optics shuttered, he rested, letting his weary legs recuperate while muscle cables twitched and rippled under his plating. Then slowly, like an approaching zephyr in a forest a sound grew from the silence, becoming louder and stronger with each pulse of First Aid's spark. Neither the murmur of voices in distant conversation nor the lilting of song rising from the holy chapels on prayer day, this was song and spoken word melded into a fluid discord that enticed the spark to come investigate even as it sent chills of self preserving fear through his back struts.

Finally, nerves jangling and spark racing from undirected terror First Aid unshuttered his optics, looking carefully about him to alight on a dark doorway he had not noticed before. The strange voices emanated from there. "_Dark things dwell in Unicron's Gate_." The gate guard's words resounded within Aid's processors halting him before he could even stand from his chair.

"Ratchet never allows a single patient to be overlooked." Aid murmured to himself, his mentor's actions serving as a shield to hide his fear with. His resolve buoyed by his master's examples of what a healer _should_ be like he stood, grabbing a nearby candle sconce and strode into the pitch black hall.

* * *

><p>Sunstreaker sighed, he hated playing the merchant. Haggling was repulsive as to his sensibilities, as it was for common mortals – the two things in this world he despised most after being dirty and his ancient former master. Yet, here he sat, manning the stall his brother had rented for 'their' energon trade. Sunstreaker huffed softly in disdain over his painting.<p>

Sideswipe could play the merchant, _he_ was the artist. A very unhappy artist, Sunstreaker hated designing inferior works for sale to the common mortal. Their imaginations limited them to rigid portraits and landscapes. Exactly like the one he was finishing now. Charcoal background and Dodecahex stain of the femme and her _twelve_ sparked younglings. He twitched a shoulder in disdain, mortal younglings were revolting.

Beside him Sideswipe hummed as he rearranged the many cubes that lined his stall. High grades of different origins and ages, mid grades, low grades, maintenance grades, wines, element enriched ports, nutrient mixes and minor stims passed (legally for once) from black hands to those of Pax Crystalia. Customers came and went; Sideswipe haggled from the highest prices he could legitimately claim in this impoverished city down to the mere scraps of credits he could glean from his sales.

"You're scaring the customers." Sideswipe cajoled his twin, snickering at the yellow mech's dangerously narrowed optics.

"I am not. You're haggling is getting soft." Sunstreaker replied, flooding their twin bond with all his distaste of this place, these mortals and how petty this city was in general.

"Brother, this is the best city on Ratchet's route until Crystal Spire. This is just," He smiled, that devilish grin that femmes always fell for and Sunstreaker would finally cave and do whatever he wanted at, "A practice run."

Sunstreaker let it drop, there was little else he could say. They had already had this conversation, or to be precise, he was _replaying_ this conversation as he sat pretending to be Sideswipe, a glamour giving him his twin's appearance and voice while a second glamour bent over works that had been completed the evening prior.

_:: Is he done yet? ::_ Sunstreaker asked Sideswipe through their bond, desperately hoping the young healer would return to Ratchet's side soon.

_:: Hush, this day is finally getting interesting. He's disobeying his host and in a place that smells _incredible _I think this is a darkling ward. ::_

Sunstreaker smiled darkly, allowing the disturbing display to appear on his glamour that only made this stall all the more enticing to the sheltered citizens; maybe the spineless journeyman was worth his twin's time after all.

* * *

><p>First Aid's resolve to face the darkened hall flickered as rapidly as his upheld sconce. The flame brightened and dimmed as if struggling to overcome the darkness in some fitful battle of wills. He felt much the same warring within himself between Ratchet's stern determination and his own fearful will to live beyond this day.<p>

Despite the vacillation within his processors the sense of being followed, of venting warming the air behind him and optics watching his every move pushed him forward. He wished terribly for Ratchet to be here, leading their inspection with him there to learn and follow orders. This life of leading investigations and disobeying the rules of royalty was disturbing in a great many ways and once more he found himself longing for his brothers and his home.

Finally, just as his nerves were beginning to feel tattered beyond repair the hall opened into a large space, a grand ball room or viewing gallery perhaps, once long ago. Now it served as a ward in and of itself with rows of beds six columns deep running its length. Healers in their white robes moved from patient to patient. The setting and atmosphere was one Aid had become intimately familiar with during his studies, and one he normally felt most at home in.

Until he looked at the figures, patients and healers both, that disjointed this welcoming setting into some surreal depiction as if making the tableau into a chimera of familiar and fantastic. Beings he had no words to describe filled every bed, while others seemed as normal as his own face. Femmes with tentacles, mechs having serpentine legs and lacking pedes entirely were but a mere sampling of the least intimidating of those within the hall.

His observations were performed in a flash, optics scanning swiftly and just as he entered the hall all movement and conversation ceased. Optics, scores upon scores looked up at him. Some filled with hunger at his mere presence, some with fear yet all held an intense mistrust so deep as to bring an unbearable weight upon his chassis crushing him with their despair.

"I am – "

"We know who you are, mortal, and who you claim to serve. None save the master healer has ever dared defy the will of Lady Flipsides, and you will not be excluded." A tall femme snarled dark amethyst optics slitted dangerously. Her white healer's garb seemed distinctly out of place next to the lethal long daggers that suddenly appeared in her hand.

* * *

><p><em>Sigdrifa<em>, war spirit; _emousae_, malevolent shifter, _wurm_; the wisdom serpent; _vuokho_, massive angelic mech that served as guardian to the darkling races … Sideswipe gapped at the figures filling the massive hall. His invisible form completely overlooked by the darklings that speared the young healer he shadowed with their malevolent gazes. In the time before their imprisonment, Crimson and Gold had rarely seen even small villages of darklings, yet within this large mortal city they thrived. Awed by their numbers and impressed with their fierceness he knew that here, at least, they were free of his ancient master's hand.

* * *

><p>"If this is refusal to submit to my inspection then I will fail this entire facility, this will not be followed up by Master Healer Ratchet and any monies received from the capitol for continued services and your licenses will be discontinued as of our return to the Imperial City in spring. Next winter Ratchet will oversee the condemning of your facility.<p>

"It is entirely your choice. However, do keep in mind that the Master Healer performed a miracle yesterday, if you doubt these claims you can send a messenger to the Decepticon Temple on the docks. Brother Sun Storm will vouch for Ratchet's efforts, as will the merchants Sunstreaker and Sideswipe and the alchemist Wheeljack, brother to Master Ratchet, also at Black Fang. I doubt the master healer will appreciate his decade of hard work being ruined by your refusal to comply." First Aid drew himself up to his full height, optics challenging all others in the hall.

* * *

><p>Sideswipe sighed in exasperated silence; of <em>course<em> the youngling would use words to hide behind Ratchet's standing. Knowing that a slow and brutal death awaited the younger healer Sideswipe gradually lifted his guise, allowing his frame to become visible yet transparent to the darklings alone. At the sight of his dark violet optics the menacing warrior _sigdrifa_ slowed her advance, freezing as sigils appeared on the healer's hands and spiraled up the column of his throat, showing the ancient nightwalker protection glyphs of the Blood Twins.

* * *

><p>The many mech-like creatures slowed their approach as First Aid spoke, his words taming them when his mere presence would never have. As confidence filled him from their reactions First Aid once more wondered at Ratchet's reputation, and how fearful the healer must truly be to quell so many powerful beings by the mention of his name alone.<p>

"Very well, Journeyman First Aid." A mech with optics seemingly devoid of life approached. His small frame with crystalline pedes was dwarfed by the dangerous femme, yet she subsided further at his approach. "Healer Shadow Striker meant no harm, but our kinds have suffered greatly for imagined wrongs at the hands of yours."

Aid nodded slightly, "I have only experience with nightwalkers and only little. My first encounter was with a kind one who refuted killing, and then others who relished in it. I will not judge any being so long as their patients, mortal and otherwise are properly cared for. I have taken up my master's beliefs as he has shown me the good and ill in all we have treated thus far."

The small mech nodded curtly, "Then follow me youngling its time you learned of darklings, the _leanai an cistiu_, and our illnesses."

* * *

><p>Sideswipe grinned to himself as he once more became unseen. Standing invisible behind the much shorter journeyman healer he watched the young mech work. Where Ratchet saved kindness for those who truly needed it, First Aid used it as much as any of his healing abilities. The mech was skilled, lacking only the confidence in his gifts to become a mortal equivalent to the fearsome Ratchet.<p>

With an unseen smirk Sideswipe looked down at the glyph painted on First Aid's neck which marked him as protected by the Blood Twins. Their ancient name was infamous to all the immortal races and the darklings had long memories. These many beings malevolent and benign knew these glyphs and to fear them. Becoming visible only to them behind First Aid's shoulder only made the message clearer that the healer was not to be touched, besides, he smirked victoriously, the young healer could do with some self confidence at being Ratchet's apprentice.

In unusual silence Sideswipe watched over First Aid as the young healer spoke with the darkling healers, listening as they educated him in the healing arts of the _leanai an cistiu. _As they spoke, First Aid took confidence from their lead standing straighter as the day slowly ticked by. Smirking slightly Sideswipe slipped out Unicron's Gate in the younling's wake, splitting off in the early evening light to return to Ratchet's bedside.

* * *

><p>First Aid listened entranced to the other healers, learning by word and observation the differences between mortal and darkling and from their stories, the differences between darkling and fae. They spoke of Ratchet, his first rampage into their darkling ward, and his seemingly miraculous ability to heal all kinds of darklings without ever knowing their designs.<p>

"Here, youngling, if Ratchet vouches for you, and sends you in his stead then we'll endure you. But, you've also shown yourself to be a better mech than most. Take this, it is a grimore, our tome of healing knowledge. This will guide you if others of our kind need your care, and it will grant you our aid if you are in danger." Shadow Striker held out a massive tome to First Aid who braced himself to take the ancient book. Yet as it touched his mortal hands it shrunk into a simple amethyst crystal suspended on a platinum chain.

"My thanks, Healer Shadow Striker." Aid smiled at the intimidating femme, and reached for a silver cuff from around his wrist pulling it off gently and placing the ornately carved band into her hand. "This is a promise band from the Imperial City Guard Protectors. My brothers lead these forces. If you need the aid of mortals, bring this to any Guard Protector station and ask for Hot Shot. My eldest brother will do all he can."

The femme he now knew to be a _sigdrifa _smiled as she clutched the band. "How is it that so young and sheltered a healer can bring hope when all others have failed?"

Aid shrugged, "Thank Ratchet, if we had met three weeks ago I would have fainted on the spot. He showed me what it means to be strong." With a final farewell Aid finished his tour, finding Lady Flipsides suddenly more hospitable and the entire keep somewhat friendlier.

Once outside he saw that midday had come and gone leaving the early gloom of twilight. He vented, breath condensing heavily on the still air and strode closer to midtown to yet another healing ward. This promised to be a long night, however it would be rewarding to report back to Ratchet and hopefully see pride in his master's gaze.

* * *

><p>AN: Until next time ...


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** This was origionally a prompt put up by DeathStallion on DA and ChimeraDark on the LJ Twins-x-Ratch comm.

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><p><em>Hearken younglings, listen well,<em>

_for the truth 'tis all I tell. _

_The lycan howls, the nightwalker cries, _

_the fey dance and the mortal dies,_

_But all obey the siren's call _

_for by Her song in love they fall …_

* * *

><p><em>The chapel stood like a skeletal finger strut silhouetted against the night dark sky, blotting out the stars and moon above. Snow crunched beneath his pedes, crackling like the bubbled slag remains of mechs burnt with magnesium fire at the stake.<em> _Inside, the lifeless frames of countless Autobots hung from shackles along the once pristine chapel walls; walls now splattered in the garish macabre hues of mech fluids. Along the dull stone floor equally decorated in disturbing shades of death lie disemboweled frames of innumerable Decepticons. Everywhere the air was heady with the sickly sweet stench of death._

_No echoes resounded from his faltering tread as he headed down the rightmost corridor behind the altar. It was cold here, frigid as the winter night outside could never be. Along the floor freezing water, colder than ice puddled and condensed, the occasional drop falling upwards to the ceiling crying out the presence evil._

_The silence, punctuated by the rising droplets dripping upwards with echoing plips, was broken only by the slow grating of stone as a massive hidden door in the wall gradually slid open. From beyond the threshold blew in a killing chill, freezing the moisture from the air to fall as spreading frost along the dampened floors, like scattered rock salt falling as gentle lethal hail. He ran, fearing the spreading deadly ice without in the corridor more than the frigid air within the pitch black room. _

_It was warm; a small fire glowing in a low hearth heated the room, making the transition from relentless cold to comforting warmth churn his tanks, making him swallow tensely with a grimace the bitter fluid rising in his throat. Disoriented and unsteady he lit a lamp, increasing the meager firelight only slightly as he moved about the strangely familiar room. He turned, peering deeper into the consuming darkness until the dim gleam of ruddy hued plating caught his optics and stilled his intakes._

_Beauty was something he had never held much stock in. He knew he was less than beautiful, still sometimes, like the perfect golden dawn in summer or a youngling activating its optics for the first time, beauty caught him by surprise. And, he mused as he tried to get his spark back in its chamber and his glossa out of his throat; this was one of those times. _

_They were_ beautiful_. Warriors, taller than him by at least a head were pressed against the far wall. Bright plating colored a ruddy gold and deep red glimmered in the fire lit room. Their lines were clean, forms radiating power and strength even in their unconscious states. The golden mech caught his optics the most. His helm was graced with curved, flaring scalloped audio crests that arched out like strange shells found along the distant shore. The red form, though more angular than the nearly organic golden one, held sensor horns shaped like crystals, his helm more angular and faceted as a gem. Their necks, long and powerful were highlighted by vibrant blue tubing protecting their main energon lines, the bright contrasting colors only increasing their beauty. Their helms were black, highlighted in gold for the curved one and deeper black for the crystalline other. _

_He stared transfixed at their forms yet, something was off about how they stood there. It was as if they had no optics to speak of. He approached the warrior pair and cursed in horrified surprise. The pair had been bolted to the massive arching pillars. The heavy titanium spikes piercing through each joint ensured they would not be moved easily. Chains secured their frames to the pillars over the bolts as if someone feared the two could have the strength to rip the restraints from their damaged forms._

_Thick blind folds masked the upper portions of their faces, gags muzzled them and around their necks shimmering golden gossamer cloths hung as bizarre accessories to their heavy bindings. He turned to the golden form pulled to the warm hue against his will. Bolts were carefully pulled from the wounds, each gaping hole thoroughly cleaned and bound. With each spike pulled he looked for the silver grey of processed energon, the light blue coolant, dark greenish-black lubricants, vibrant orange hydraulics, venom yellow servo fluids, or any other rainbow hued liquid a mech could generate – and found none._

_The frames beneath his hands hummed steadily from active systems. They were running on the cool side, but with so little fluid in their systems it was unsettling that they ran at all. Finally, the last wound tended, he pulled the chains from the warriors, one at a time with painstaking slowness. He had to carefully lower them to the ground to keep from aggravating their extensive wounds._

_Hands and arms trembling from the exertion he rolled the golden warrior over, accidentally ripping off the gossamer cloth about the mech's throat pulling it off black neck cabling by a rough chain link. _

_Suddenly he was pinned against the golden plating, strong arms holding him immobile against the broad chest plates. A warm mouth clamped around the cabling of his neck as a sting of agony ripped through him, making him cry in ecstasy. This close to the other mech a soft fragrance rose to tantalize his olfactory sensors, alluring and heady, intoxicating yet subtle he pressed himself closer, white hot desire making him rub wantonly against the other as another set of arms wrapped securely about his waist sandwiching him between both warriors with a needy moan –_

* * *

><p>Long shadows stretched across the white ceiling, weak late afternoon sunlight making the room feel stifled and drowsy. Within the oversized berth Ratchet stirred sluggishly despite the fresh charge filling his interface array burning him from the inside out. Noting the late hour of the day, his third in Pax Crystalia, he vented unhappily, thanks to that 'miracle' he had lost the entire day to recharging – and dreaming of the <em>thrall<em> that had nearly made him bare himself to the very nightwalkers who had destroyed Coldsteel Garrison. He wanted to scream, and only the memory of his first tour reminded him that the one day lost this time had been nowhere near as severe as his first, where he had nearly lost a week to exhaustion. That thought kept him calm. That, and how energized he felt now as his frame seethed with need and burning want.

Finding himself for once allowed to rest he shifted uncomfortably. His plating prickled and his lines tensed with unfulfilled longing. The charge in his lines had never completely faded after being _enthralled_ by the nightwalker pair in the chapel of the former Steeldale village and the dream he had just pulled himself from had only encouraged the heady burn to conflagration.

Now, he shifted again, his frame longed for the very creatures he feared, even as his spark yearned for the beautiful mechs who had saved him from freezing to death on the road, and watched his back in the brawl yesterday. His processors felt fuzzy, drifting within the haze of need and unfulfilled lust.

"You seem tense." A voice purred with dark intent that sent tremors of desire coursing through Ratchet's lines like burning liquid mercury. He looked down, startled at the intent optics staring at him hungrily from their perch on his abdomen and hip plating.

"You two are squishing me." Ratchet groused gruffly, internally flinching at his petulant tone that seethed with need. He sounded like a street walker, he thought with disgust even as the beautiful pair laying indolently on top of him smiled hugely, optics brightening with desire and emotions Ratchet lacked the experience to identify.

A black hand spread across Ratchet's chest, pressing over his wildly pulsing spark, "All the better to seduce you, then." Sideswipe purred, tracing seams on Ratchet's bare chest plating. Ratchet cycled his optics, when had he lost his shirt?

Fingers gently guided Ratchet's chin, pulling him into a chaste press of lip plating. Firm lips pressed against his, nibbling languidly without deepening the exchange as Sunstreaker stoked the inferno building in Ratchet's interface circuits. Sideswipe continued to press open mouthed kisses along the taunt, white abdominal plating, trailing slowly towards tantalizing red hips, hips that clothing usually kept secreted from his hungering gaze.

Ratchet shuddered, trapped beneath the glorious, beautiful pair. They tormented his plating, earning writhing shudders and throaty moans as skilled musicians playing electro-harps. He was torn as he slowly gave into his mounting desire between fulfilling his longing for the pair so willingly in his berth and protecting the beautiful idiots from the nightwalkers that plagued his waking moments – nightwalkers that suddenly seemed nonexistent in his processors, as if the past three and a half weeks of horror and recrimination had never been.

Sensing his uncertainty in the hesitant return of his kisses Sunstreaker gently pulled away, optics deepened to a near cobalt hue in a mesmerizing mix of unchecked desire and concerned adoration. "You can ask us to stop." He spoke breathlessly, deep voice nudging the healer's lust beyond mere want, optics belying his soothing words.

Ratchet let his hazy processors follow that statement. He thought of stopping them, taking a cold shower and putting in some work – focusing on his route map while ignoring the aching longing coursing through his lines like searing venom that tormented him in increasing agony building by the second – "Frag that." Ratchet hissed as he pulled Sunstreaker roughly to him, crushing their lips together in a fierce demanding kiss. His other hand blindly sought Sideswipe's helm pressing the other mech further down towards his interface array and the desperately burning circuitry there.

He lost track of time as his glossa tangled with Sunstreaker's. Their mouths battling for dominance of the kiss and Ratchet refused to back down. He lost track of everything as a skilled glossa writhe within his valve, gasping into the talented mouth dueling with his as the slick appendage writhed within his sensitive channel.

Thick fingers pressed into his valve, a mouth enveloping his spike, bobbing as he was sucked in sync with the thrusting of those deliciously roughened fingers against the many sensitized nodes that sang within his valve walls wringing a cry of delight from his lips. Sunstreaker pulled from the prolonged kiss, optics locked with Ratchet's lust hazed own, smiling a salacious grin that made Ratchet's spark hitch from its promise and beauty. Why these gorgeous mechs were loving him he didn't know – his thought was cut off, shattered from his processors as more fingers, smooth as the softest silk joined with the roughened fingers still stimulating his delicate inner lining.

Ratchet watched the pair seducing him, enthralled as they moved over and around each other. They barely registered the other was there – and yet it was as if they were almost hyper aware of their positions. They never touched, never tuned to pleasure each other and yet if one made Ratchet squirm or moan they both grinned like younglings with new candy. One's joyous discovery was equally shared with the other.

His side tracked musings were cut off as the pair shifted and gathered Ratchet into their arms, fingers abandoning their dalliance within his valve as large, trembling spikes, one black one gold, slowly pressed to fill him. They seethed in exquisite agony, the taller pair hissing their delight in his still tight valve even as he moaned long and loud as they pressed further inside with maddening slowness. Deep, throbbing moans rushed from his mouth, gusting his lovers with heated intakes. The chill air of the room swiftly heated, vapor rising from Ratchet's burning plating as he was slowly filled with those powerful spikes.

Condensation clung heavily to the red and golden frames dripping to saturate the heavy bedclothes. Twin sighs came as the pair surrounding him hilted themselves, panting softly as he adjusted to their girths. Ratchet licked hungrily along Sideswipe's neck plating, grinding shallowly against black and gold plating pressing impossibly close to signal he was ready. And, like hunting cats charging after startled prey they began thrusting in earnest, long strokes stimulating every node almost painfully within his too full valve, making him keen in joyous ecstasy at the sweet agony.

Sunstreaker groaned from the tight heat encasing him and his twin, grinding his denta as he fought the urge to enthrall his lover with his _kiss_. Ratchet made it so difficult as he pushed against their thrusts, that delectable valve rippling and clenching about them, milking them ever closer towards release. Thrusting their spikes further into Ratchet's slicked channel they wrung sweet moans that were a siren's call pulling the twins deeper into their desire for the smaller white mech crying their names and writhing between them.

Sideswipe trembled as he fought for control as his brother set their pace, sought to deepen this exquisite encounter as he sealed his lips against the healer's mouth tasting the frame-shuddering moans. The medic owned them, controlled them. His fear became their courage, his lust their pleasure. He could command them to rip out their own spark and they would do so gratefully if only to feel his joy swell their battered spark before it left their death grayed frames as so much ash. The imagery was erotic within his processors, spiking his lust and increasing his thrusts. His desire bleed through the twin bond, making Sunstreaker growl ferally, denta bared as optics bleed to dark violet with the loss of their self control and their guises.

Ratchet moaned into the talented mouth sealing against his own, cried out as another bit savagely against his neck plating that seared delicious pained pleasure through his lines and stoked him to overload. His valve spiraled tightly down on the paired spikes still thrusting shallowly within him as he keened his release, the pair grunting their releases one after the other as he came down from the earth shattering high.

Trembling with exhaustion and sated to the point of recharge Ratchet slumped against the red chest before him, clinging tightly to the frames shielding him in his weakened state of afterglow. The twins shifted him, moved him to lay with them, still conjoined by the sated spikes twitching within his shuddering valve.

"'Jack's never going to let me live this down." Ratchet sighed as he clung closer to his lovers, smiling as he felt their sated smirks and possessive optics land on his bent helm. The pair lounged in contented silence as they held Ratchet, ghosting fingers both rough and smooth over his overheated frame as he slowly slipped into a light doze safely surrounded by his new lovers and dark violet light.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe let themselves lie in pleasured bliss with the recharging healer as the late afternoon shadows slowly lengthened towards golden dusk that mingled night darkness with daylight shade. _:: It's time. ::_ Sideswipe urged silently, reluctantly pulling himself and his twin from their lover's berth.

_:: I love him. ::_ Sunstreaker breathed in awe over their bond, deep violet optics locked devotedly on the white frame. Sideswipe smiled broadly at his twin, their new affection for this medic quickly becoming a solid anchor within their tattered spark.

_:: I know. ::_ Sideswipe pulled his twin gently from the berth side, and into the en suite wash racks, taking time to make their armor shine. _:: We need to do this with him next time. :: _the red twin leered towards the shut wash rack door as if he could still see Ratchet's sated frame leaking their transfluids from that beautiful valve. He grunted as Sunstreaker's elbow slammed into his chest.

_:: Less spacing, more waxing. If we're going to intimidate our 'host' we have to be flawless. ::_ Sunstreaker glared over his shoulder at his twin, getting a smug, leering smirk in return.

_:: You just don't want some nameless grifter to scent our healer on us and think to take a tumble in the berth with him. :: _Sideswipe snickered, swallowing his mirth immediately as Sunstreaker's rare possessive streak blazed across their bond, instantly turning Sideswipe's cheerful ribbing into black hate and green jealously writhing through their spark. The thought meant as a jibe to his normally more aloof twin had sent them both reeling from the depth of their ardent devotion to Ratchet.

_:: We're so slagged. :: _The though came unbidden between their bond, unknowing who said it or if it was one of those emotions that came straight from their shared spark in a voice that was both theirs and neither, as if their spark held a voice of its own.

_:: Let's go. :: _Sunstreaker snarled, giving his red twin a once over before they vanished from mortal sight.

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><p>Bleary optics blinked with vague awareness at the darkened room, taking in the early night darkness that filled the space and his cold berth with deep shadows while the window just above the headboard still glowed dimly with day's last dying light. "They're gone." Ratchet sighed almost despondently as he moved from the berth, grimacing as the heavy sheets peeled from his frame wetly with the mingled transfulids from their lovemaking. He coughed, the dim reek of ozone and hard interface lingering in the air, making the room nearly unbearable with their reek.<p>

He swiftly stripped the berth of its sheets, wiping the mattress down before remaking the it with fresh sheets from the small wardrobe by the berth room door. Still in the nude he pulled air cleansing incense from his healing pack, lighting them to pull the love stink from the room and moved to the wash racks, scenting his lovers' unique wash and wax within the still damp room with an uncomfortable pang of uncertainty. He had, somewhere in his recharge, led himself to believe that he'd wake up to them staring at him, counting his intakes as he rested like some sappy scene from a love ballad.

Shaking his head at his own ridiculousness Ratchet quickly cleansed himself, his processors urging him to clean himself quickly and maybe get some real work done before this day was lost completely. Now he just had to pray that the lingering stench from their earlier activities would be removed from the room before Wheeljack showed up. Finally clean he strode from the washroom, foregoing a towel to cover his modesty as his satchel was just outside the washroom door – and gapped at Wheeljack's knowing smirk.

'Jack smirked, one optic ridge quirking towards the berth, audio indicators strobing his amusement as he looked over his brother's nude form. "Oh, really?"

Ratchet gaped, faceplates burning with mortification as his brother merely leaned against the room's table, arms casually folded across his chest. He felt trapped, mortified at 'Jack finding him like this, hurt at waking alone and furious that he was being such a pansy-bot.

"Not that I blame them, you are easy on the optics Ratch." 'Jack finally spoke, breaking the uncomfortable silence, still scrutinizing his brother.

"Say one more word, any word and I will steak you out for sunrise." Ratchet snarled savagely as he pushed past his brother to his satchel and clothes, "And 'Jack? If First Aid hears one rumor of this I will rip your spark out through your nasal assembly."

Despite the threats he knew were more promise than idle banter, 'Jack grinned beneath his face guard, an angry, violent Ratchet was much more comforting and familiar than this nice, helpful bot he was pretending to be out here on his winter circuit. "He won't hear one word from me, but I'm sure these thin walls will provide all the savory, sordid details his mortal spark could ask for."

"Slaggit, 'Jack! It's not like I planned this! They should have been at their stall selling their precious energon, not in here seducing – with me – they shouldn't have been in here with me." Ratchet snarled flustered as he savagely yanked his clothes from his pack with a soft curse.

"What's wrong?" Jack immediately asked, not knowing how to deal with Ratchet's sudden emotional bouts that were threatening to give him elevation sickness from his rising fury to his spiraling depression.

"They were here, with me when I woke up this afternoon. They – " he gestured helplessly to the empty berth room still fragrant with the pungent sweet stench of a hard interface, and something Wheeljack couldn't identify, some underlying scent that made his neck plating prickle with unease. "Then they were gone and I – I – damn it 'Jack I never wanted to fall in love. Unmaker, take them." Ratchet swore softly as he pulled on the last of his robes.

Wheeljack stared at his brother in stunned silence, wondering what Unmaker sent nightmare he had just walked in to. His brother, the Unmaker incarnate himself, had _finally_ found a – no two – lovers. Within his processors terrifying images of his brother fawning over the merchant pair, murmuring sweet nothings in public and acting like any youngling on their first crush warred violently with nauseating scenes of Hide and Chromia bouncing like littles at seeing their mechling settled with mates. He could only look to the ceiling in desperate supplication, "Primus save me."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** This was originally a prompt by DeathStallion and chimeradark on LJ. All transformers are property of Hasbro/Takara and their respective creators. I own nothing.

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><p><em>The forest of Darkling Wood is drear, it is all of shadow and black trunked tree. The moon peeks not through the gathering storm as night fills with their dreadful forms. Oh brilliant moon, child of Primus' light even you hide weeping, for through our silent city dear the nightwalkers come creeping.<em>

"If this is the norm on this route then Ratchet has a lot of explaining to do." Aid grumbled as he stormed through the scraped and salted streets of Pax Crystalia. Soft blue lamp light filled the darkness as he headed to Arachnia's inn through the late night chill. He nodded his greetings to the night clerk at the front desk, slipped past the tavern that spilled light and laughter even at this late hour and stormed to Ratchet's room barging in without knocking and uncaring of the warning glare he received from his master's nightwalker brother sitting at the bedside of the target of his wrath.

"First Aid!" Ratchet snarled, surprised by Aid's uncharacteristic intrusion, making his apprentice dodge a hastily thrown quill pen aimed straight for his optic.

"I inspected Unicron's Gate." Aid seethed flatly after the silence had stretched with Jack's nervous shifting in his chair as the only sound in the room.

"Did you listen to Ejector?" Ratchet asked blandly with an unusually calm smirk, his sudden shift in mood startling his apprentice with his disturbing calm.

"Who the slag is Ejector?" Aid threw his hands up in frustration as he cursed which only caused his master to chuckle lightly.

"The very tall intimidating guard who should have told you that, 'dark things dwell within the keep'."

"Uh, oh." Aid sighed as his shoulders slumped tiredly. He pulled another chair into the berth room from the sitting area and plucked the pen from where it stuck from the thick wooden wall. He sat tiredly, nasal assembly wrinkling in distaste at the sour scent in the air. "No, I didn't listen to him. Ratchet, some femme healer nearly gutted me!"

"Were you hurt?" Wheeljack immediately asked in concern, sending his brother a scathing look as he worried over the apprentice, who Wheeljack suddenly realized was three vorns older than he was – or the age his creators had said he was. The thought was disturbing in a vaguely unfathomable manner, and Jack could only wrench his attention back to the apprentice and block his other thoughts away.

"No, no, another healer, Fixit, he stopped her." Aid mumbled tiredly, somehow feeling like a younling crying about imagined wrongs to an overly amused caretaker.

"Good" Ratchet grinned, "Listen up, Flipsides is a dhampiel, and she probably claimed she was harmless," Aid nodded, "Which is a load of slag. Dhampiel's are just as dangerous as nightwalkers and often more so."

Ratchet watched as his apprentice's optics grew wide, brightening in fear. "She can drink high grade, walk in the sunlight and is only slightly weaker than Wheeljack." He jerked his thumb in 'Jack's direction for emphasis as the younger healer gaped in horror. "Dhampiels can act as nightwalkers, attacking mortals and draining them, they can turn their victims into ghouls and they can form psychic bonds with them. The only difference between a vampiric dhampiel and a nightwalker, is that no matter how desperately they want to make their own children, they can't. Dampiels do not turn mortals." Ratchet tapped his finger against the tome that lay across his lap to emphasize each word then fell silent, letting his lesson sink into the tired young healer's processors for a moment.

"But, _why_?" Aid wailed tiredly, "Why send me there alone? Why not warn me? I'm not like you I was never raised as a hunter!" His voice rose, laced with static as he stared at Ratchet with hurt optics.

"Would you have entered that dark hall if I had told you what they treated there?" Ratchet countered sagely, sounding to Wheeljack just like Chromia when they were younglings learning the dangers of being hunters, and the lethal promise of failing their lesions.

"I – uh, no." Aid admitted weakly. He would have fled Pax Crystalia and the entirety of the Steele Sector back to Imperial City if he'd known. "This was a test?"

Ratchet nodded once, "So, why did I throw you to the darklings without warning?"

Aid stared at his hands, fingers twitching from his toils and tension from the day, "A healer upholds an oath to help all in need. Not mortal, not wealthy, not poor, but _everyone_. We can't do our duty if we shutter our optics against those we choose."

Ratchet nodded, "That's the simple answer." He caught Aid's gaze with his own, "Our ends never justify our means, remember that. So, you inspected and you survived. Did Lady Flipsides escort you out of Unicron's Gate?" Ratchet finally asked with a tired yawn that only highlighted how terribly drained he still was after his miracle healing. Though Aid could only second guess himself as Wheeljack somehow managed to leer amusedly at his brother with his face mask still in place, a leer that got him a sound punch in the arm that would have heavily dented a normal mortal. Still, Wheeljack swore under his breath and rubbed his arm with a rumbled complaint.

"Yes, she said her doors were always open to the master healer and his apprentice." Aid sighed as he corralled his train of thought, coming back to the discussion at hand.

"Odd, she told me after my first encounter with the darkling ward that if I ever came back and interfered with her work again she would personally steak me out for the next nightwalker and made me find my own way out of the labyrinth she has the audacity to call award." Ratchet mused worriedly, he and Flipsides had never been on good terms with each other. He could only wonder what had changed.

"Ever consider your charming bedside manner might have affected her decision?" Wheeljack asked with a cackle that only got him a solid whack to the helm and some inventive cursing that made Aide stare at Ratchet torn between shocked awe and terrified horror. Despite his flippant words Wheeljack could only wonder if Sun Storm had spoken of Ratchet's true nature to the Lady of Unicron's Gate. A dawn sprite had the ability to destroy nightwalkers and dhampiels alike, such a revelation could have made the dhampiel Lady nervous.

"Ratchet, you've performed two miracles in ten years, both in Pax Crystalia. If she doubts you still then she's an idiot." Aid spoke in his mentor's defense, still miffed at being sent off _alone_ into the dhampiel's den. Still his words were true, Ratchet was a powerful healer, so powerful and notorious that carriers across Imperial City used his name as a threat to get their younglings to recharge. _'Be good and go recharge or Healer Ratchet will come for you.'_ His carrier had pulled that one on him more than a few times – and normally it had worked.

* * *

><p>Twin shadows eeled through the dark alleys of the slums, slinking past crowded hovels and slovenly open doors that served as ale houses to the poor. Here, everything was mired in the rank stench of mortal despair. The crowded masses who filled this cesspool of poverty and crime pressed in every corner of the blackened scar below the docks. Yet, to the shadows passing through their mists they were the thrumming promises of life that filled the night with their vibrant coronas of heat and the sweet pulsing of living sparks.<p>

Sunstreaker grinned malevolently as they passed, enjoying the slight flicker of energy that stilled mechs and femmes alike, bringing them to stare nervously into the darkness, waiting for something to show itself. It never got old, he mused, tormenting the mortal chattel that filled the living ranks. They cowered in their pools of light, ignorant to the dangers around them and pretended all was well when nothing struck.

Beside him, Sideswipe frowned, noticing increasingly larger pockets of the living that could no longer sense them, too entrenched within their cycles of working and overcharging that nothing intangible could faze them. Yet they moved out from the slums, earlier business completed, allowing them to make their next stop for the evening.

Every city has its underbelly, a living cesspool of darkness that seethes with all the depravity the mechanoid race could produce. In this city that seething darkness existed in the crowded high society chateaus nestled in the shadow of the palace proper. There, in the bright candle light of a warm parlor three mechs waited for their arrival.

"Swindle," Crimson stepped forward, dark violet optics raking dangerously over the young nightwalker and his two new creations. The three younger immortals trembled at the other's sudden appearance, afraid of one of their own, an ancient who defied the passing centuries that graced him with his frigid thrall yet kept him eternally young.

The purple and black grifter sneered at the ancient, red nightwalker as he hid his fear. "You have the merchandise?"

"Soon," Sideswipe assured smoothly, "And what of your part of the bargain?" The words were asked with a rich smoothness, as sinful as long aged high grade.

"Uh, it'll be at warehouse 409 at the witching hour. Make sure my servants return with the merchandise, or I will hunt you down come dawn."

"Until the witching hour then." Sideswipe replied as he faded from sight, vanishing from the room with a leering grin that chilled the three nightwalkers to the core.

* * *

><p>Ratchet paced within his quarters, waiting through the darkest hours of the night for the coming dawn. Jack and Aid had left him for their berths hours ago when the apprentice had become too weary with the day's toils. Now, with the candles and lamps blown out he paced in the pitch black room with only the faint misty light of the bright moon outside to relive the darkness.<p>

Tomorrow, once the first breath of dawn encroached, would be his last in Pax Crystalia. He had finally been swayed by Jack's concern and Aid's proposal to request apprentice healers from each of the wards throughout the city to aid in treating the half feral younglings that ran the streets. Aid's argument had been sound, and grudgingly Ratchet agreed, the city had to ensure the health of their poorest citizens lest one develops a viral code that should become a plague.

He was ready for the coming dawn, letters requesting assistance had been written and sent by late courier to each of the wards now all he could do was wait for dawn and wonder if either of his new lovers would seek him out before his duties called him into the dark city beyond the darkened window pane.

* * *

><p><em>:: <em>This_ was the best you could come up with? :: _Sunstreaker sneered at his twin, sipping repugnantly on the foulest low grade swill he had ever encountered. They did not belong here, in this filthy tavern thick with the oxidized stench of overheated plating and gunked up gears. The mechs here were shabby, plating thick with grime and optics hazy from too much energon.

Those patrons here came willingly for the cheap rations no sane mech would touch that would allow them to get over energized for as cheap as possible. Mechs and femmes of nameless shades and forms shambled in from their daytime toils only to choke down the foul dregs other wealthier establishments refused to sell before staggering off in their blissfully overcharged states to whatever miserable lives they came home to.

Still, the proprietor of the Broken Helm, a massive black mech known as Konboi, held one rule all followed religiously; there was no fighting within the Broken Helm. If there was he or any of his bouncers and bully mechs of varying race and sizes would physically remove the combatants and leave them in the gutter outside with their helms broken, just as the crudely crafted and graphically depicted tavern sign outside displayed. Helms were not designed to shatter _that_ way.

Sideswipe looked the place over, sensing it was unusually subdued and smirked, noting as many of the silent gawkers noticed his glance and huddled within themselves hiding from him and his twin. Sideswipe finally grinned mischievously at Sunstreaker, dark violet optics and lethally sharp fangs shown for all to see. _:: We don't have to hide here. ::_

_:: Moron ::_ Sunstreaker seethed, his own sundrenched golden plating glimmering ominously from their corner table. The Broken Helm tavern held the dubious reputation of being the most dangerous ale house in all of Pax Crystalia. Situated north of the docks, well away from the slums it catered to the sell-swords, rough side bawds, and those who bartered in more dangerous trades. The sins of the patrons supported the hidden population of darklings filling the lower class ranks that lived side by side with mortals.

Workers coming for their nightly ration huddled by the bar and nearby tables while casting furtive glances towards the pair that radiated an aura of purest evil. Bloody crimson and brilliant sunset gold the terrible beauties held all in silent terror. Here, the twin's nightwalker heritage would only aide them in spreading their presence through the darkling masses.

Dressed in garb befitting nobles, their long sir coats and fancy jerkins made them into glinting starlings amongst a roost of drab petro-sparrows. Here, in the stench and filth of the tavern they waited for their 'host' and the commodity he sold.

"So you two are still alive. We heard you had been sealed for all eternity – a death sentence for any of _your _kind if held long enough." An old voice wheezed by Sunstreaker's elbow. With a start the pair turned to the mech who had crept upon them and gaped at a mech they had last seen months before their imprisonment.

"Triatoma?" Sideswipe stared at the ancient, hunched old mech, the once matte black plating now a dim charcoal hue.

"You two haven't changed," the mech smiled, his wizened face creasing with age as his denta gleamed dimly in the tavern light. "Any other moon borne bastard of the Beast would have perished long ago."

Sideswipe cast a thought incredulously towards his twin, the same thought running through their minds as they looked on the once youngling they had taken under their guidance so long ago. "Tria, how long has it been?"

The old mech smiled at Sideswipe genially, "Ten thousand vorns have come and gone since you two were taken." Optics still the same near turquoise hue from long ago pierced the two with an unfathomably wise gaze, "You two taught the mechling I once was to stand strong against the Beast. You raised me as a younger brother, and now I look on you as an ancient assassin and necromancer on his last energy traces. I've waited ten thousand years for my brothers and masters to awaken."

Sunstreaker studied the mech he remembered as a toddling youngster brought to them as a rare treat to consume. The Beast had given them a three vorn old spark as a reward for services rendered. Yet somehow they could never bring themselves to feast upon the strangely hued mortal with wise blue optics that could stare into their long cold sparks.

"You took sacrifices to live?" It was more a statement than question, but at Sunstreaker's words Triatoma nodded as he sat down, ignoring the rising murmur from the patrons now free of the nightwalker's spell of fear. "How can they still know of us after so long?" Sunstreaker spoke of the darklings in the healing ward of Unicron's Gate, unsettled and disturbed that so long had passed since their departure from the living realm into their eternal limbo only to find that they were still whispered of as the fiends of nightmare and legend.

"After you vanished I took my many apprentices and fully trained master assassins to the Primes of Iacon, offering our services to Nemesis, the shadowed Prime, as you two had before us. We were accepted and, once every two thousand years the Primes of Iacon re-fabricated your tale, using my guild to stage attacks on villages on the night of your imprisonment, resurrecting the fear your names once brought.

"Four times my younglings killed in your names, and now, on the eve of their fifth task, I ask you to take the two who were to remind the living to fear you under your care as you once bore me and guide them."

Sideswipe pinched the bridge of his nasal ridge, venting long and slow as he shushed the black form with a single upheld finger. "You extended your life by ten centuries just to – what? – See us back to life and give us two younglings in your stead?" He snorted darkly as he slouched impudently, highlighting the dangerous gleam in his optics as he challenged Tria's aged gaze.

"Ha! You two might be ancient but you have not lived past your imprisonment, you are like new younglings with the memories of Spin-out and Skid-out to guide you. No, I have not endured ten thousand years just to resurrect you, but my time is running out." With a slight gesture two small mechs stepped out from the shadows, bright blue optics radiating their youth and determination.

"All of my affairs are in order, but these two never belonged with the Shadowed Prime's assassins. They are kind-hearted and loyal, they need a chance at a life without constant killing. Can you guide them in my stead?"

Sunstreaker looked beyond Tria's dark form to the smaller mechs emerging for the encompassing shadows at the edges of the tavern, red and yellow both bore small horns on their helms but despite their similarities they could never be mistaken for brothers. "They were going to represent us? You insult us, Tria. They're tiny."

"Watch it pretty mech." The miniature Sideswipe impersonator growled dangerously as he glared up at Sunstreaker impudently.

"How did you know we had been awakened or where to find us?" Sideswipe asked with a grim smirk.

"The current Shadowed Prime. He sent orders for us to infiltrate some young upstart healer's route, said you'd been let loose. The orders came in three weeks ago." Tria kept his gaze steady with Sunstreaker's, not truly knowing how to read this pair who both were and yet were not the mechs who had been his only family.

"What do you call yourselves?" Sideswipe asked the pair, meeting the smaller yellow mech's wide opticed gaze with his own.

"I'm Bumblebee." The yellow mech replied firmly, a hint of titanium filling his soft voice and innocent optics.

"Cliffjumper." The slightly taller red mech spoke curtly.

Sideswipe laughed softly with a low shake of his helm, "They're just like we were, aren't they? One gentle, one hard; I hate to break this to you Tria, but we're no longer those weak younglings. Isolation changes a mech."

"Tria?" Bumblebee asked suddenly, looking around the tavern uncertainly, "Do you mean Triatoma? The creator of the Assassin's guild? He died a really long time ago. They say he lived for eight hundred years, but I think the stories were altered." Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked to where their adopted youngling had stood and found only shadow.

"Great, we get orders to shadow these two and they spot us on our first day. How did you mess this up, shrimp?" Cliffjumper glared at Bumblebee harshly.

While the shorter pair bickered Sunstreaker and Sideswipe could only share an uncomfortable silent question along their twin bond. The specter of their adopted little brother had clung to the living realm, waiting for their return. Unsettled at their encounter the pair could only look over the miniature pair before them, wondering if Ratchet would kill them for taking on the young assassins – on the word of a ghost.

"Besides," Cliffjumper groused drawing Sunstreaker's intent glare back to him, "What does some old ruster have to do with anything?"

"That 'old ruster' was our baby brother." Sunstreaker warned with a dangerous hiss, optics narrowed to thin lines of piercing dark violet above long fangs that shone startlingly bright in the dim tavern.

Cliffjumper swallowed nervously, looking from the taller pair, red and yellow, suddenly feeling inferior for the first time in his life and shifted angrily at the feeling. "So what are ya gonna do about it?"

Sideswipe gave a cold, calculating grin, "We never said we'd take you." He pointed to the open tavern door, "Find Arachnia at the Black Fang, you two are now the personal bodyguards of First Aid. And, neither he nor his master can know about you."

"Or," Sunstreaker rumbled flatly, optics staring coldly at the pair, "You could take your chances with _them._" He flicked a flexible audio crest in the general direction of a table behind them filled with five large femmes of lycan descent.

Bumblebee gulped nervously, not wishing to tangle with the lycans any more than he wanted to fight the dangerous nightwalkers before them. "We're going." He pulled Cliffjumper with him, heading bravely towards the door, pushing past other mechs large and small through the suffocating crowd that filled the Broken Helm.

"How entertaining," a smooth cultured voice purred as it approached their table, "To have such littles of your own."

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked up to the regal features of the mech before them. Sunstreaker sneering contemptuously at the red-faced mech before them that dared to sit with them without fear. "You have the merchandise?" Sideswipe asked drolly, allowing amusement to tint his voice.

"Do you have what I require?" the other mech demanded imperiously.

"Of course, it is being delivered to my warehouse, as we speak." Sideswipe grinned, holding out his hands calmly.

"Fine, but if it's not there, or you double cross me in any way, I will steak you out for the sun." the other mech promised, gently placing a shimmering white cube of rarest energon wine into the waiting black hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you." Sideswipe spoke as he left the table.

"Ugly scrap," Sunstereaker moved from the table behind his brother, avoiding touching the standing noble at all costs.

"Ugly!" the mech cried aghast, his fury driving him to his pedes.

"Insidiously, ugly" Sunstreaker looked the mech over with disgust before stepping through the massive doorway from the Broken Helm. The pair stepped from the tavern into the night, disappearing before their 'host's' optics into the darkness without a trace.

"_Why_ did they have to be nightwalkers?" The mech sighed, turned from the inn and headed to his waiting armed escort to return to the safety of the palace on the opposite side of his city.

"What happens if her majesty discovers what you've taken?" a roughened, world weary voice asked from the mech's shoulder.

"_If_ carrier discovers her precious treasure is missing I can truthfully claim that invading nightwalkers were last seen vanishing from sight with it. Besides, Landmine, she can hardly claim that one cube will damage her treasury."

"I don't know Lord Tracks, Lady Overdrive and Lord Hot Shot won't take too kindly to losing their last wedding energon ice wine. Besides, if you're dealin' with nightwalkers we need to tell the guard." Prince Tracks' guardian and head bodyguard Landmine spoke softly as they hurried to safer parts of Pax Crystalia.

The young prince waved his hand absently, "That can wait until tomorrow, after sunrise. After all, any noble witnessing a nightwalker attack would be wise to sequester themselves until the nightwalkers had to go to ground." Behind them the other guards looked warily at each other, none wanting to risk their lives for the selfish prince's whims.

* * *

><p>"You two are out late," the alchemist Mainframe greeted as the merchants Sunstreaker and Sideswipe entered his dockside alchemy shop. "However, I'm glad you could make it. Firebolt and I have finished your device, fascinating thing, and its ready for pick up." The mech smiled, displaying the ancient portable energon generator Sideswipe had brought in the evening of their arrival.<p>

"Perfect," Sideswipe grinned easily, "two days for a complete overhaul on an antique must be a new record."

"Something like that, although the big dolt won't admit it." A miniature black and grey faced mech stepped from his small workshop from a door that led directly onto the counter top the others leaned against.

"Firebolt likes to believe I am a better alchemist and natural philosopher than I really am." Mainframe demurred as he humbly held his hand out for payment.

"Then I think you deserve more than mere gold credits." Sideswipe replied genially, "How about _real_ platinum gold coins from the old kingdom?"

"You may be a good customer, Sideswipe, but you're an evil mech. The platinum gold of old kingdom was slagged six thousand years ago, everyone knows that." Firebolt replied hotly standing between the red mech and his master despite being the size of either's forearms.

"Then these must be fakes." Sideswipe set two of the legendary coins out on the counter at Firebolt's pedes. The miniature mech knelt in awe, running sensitive hand plating over the metal, sensors embedded there detecting the metal alloy and age from mere touch.

"Primus, they're real." Firebolt stood quickly, stepping swiftly to stand in the safe shelter between Mainframe's hands as his taller master eyed the coins warily.

"That device is worth a lot of cred is, but just one coin's worth more." Mainframe spoke carefully, not wanting to anger a mech who could possess such riches so easily

Sunstreaker, in his nightwalker glory, finally stepped forward from the shadows he had waited for his brother in. "Call it an incentive for silence, for _all_ services rendered." The lethal threat from the mech's beautiful smile sent chills down the alchemists' spinal struts.

"Done." Mainframe and Firebolt replied in unison, venting easily only when the two mechs had left their shop and the door had shut behind them. "I'd say its high time to close up shop." The two moved swiftly to bar the door and head their quarters in the small tenement above their storefront. No one would know of the merchant nightwalkers that had come to them in daylight.

* * *

><p><em>:: Mortals truly are pathetic. ::<em> Sunstreaker sneered as the raced across the city as little more than blustery gusts of wind that churned up loose snow and encouraged all within their path to huddle tighter within their heavy winter cloaks.

Sideswipe picked up the snapshot image from his brother's side of the bond, the snooty mech from the Broken Helm only now back to the upscale tavern he had left his cyber-steeds and carriage that would transport him safely to the warehouse where his 'payment' was waiting. With a smile the red mech smirked, oh yes, it was good to be an immortal, especially a cunning one.

Within moments they had traveled from the easternmost edge of the warehouse district at Mainframe's alchemy shop and had arrived at 'their' warehouse, number 409, on the southern west waterfront. As they stepped from the darkness, once more as the nightwalker Blood Twins their delivery was just arriving at the hands of the new nightwalkers with lilac pale optics.

"I don't know Ransack, I mean this new master we're serving just doesn't seem right." The larger of the supply delivery mechs complained loudly, heavy jaw guard moving ponderously with each word he spoke.

"Come on CZ, he may be one mean master, but he's not gonna kill us as long as we serve him." Ransack wheedled his companion as they shifted heavy flats of stolen energon from the nearest energon mill into the dark, creepy, cavernous building. As they worked, bantering and mocking each other, the night grew colder and a heavy fog rolled in from the frozen river.

"Uh, Crumplezone?" Ransack asked timidly, "Is it just me or did it suddenly get real cold in here?"

"Ransack, uh, I don't think we're alone." The larger mech replied as he stared into the heavy fog.

"Why do you say that?" Ransack looked to where his partner was staring and squeaked in fright. Two sets of floating disembodied eyes hovered from within the mists, staring at them.

"Because you're not." A deep voice rumbled from the fog. The words ensnared their audios, enrapturing them where they stood, both suddenly still and limp as Sunstreaker stepped from the hazy vapor to drink deeply from the larger mech. Sideswipe, followed just behind, once more impressed with his brother's control over the _thrall_ that had taken the pair over. Together the twins drained their victims, removing their helms at the shoulder and their sparks from the gaudy plated chests before rendering their victims to metallic char from white-hot magnesium fire.

"Such a waste, to send a mere childe out on mortals' business," Sunstreaker mused as the last of the young nightwalkers' remains finished smoldering and was whisked out of the warehouse by a stray wind cast as so much dust to mingle with the freshly falling snow.

"Yeah well, sucks to be them." Sideswipe shrugged impassively as he turned to the stolen energon. "So," he rubbed his hands together greedily, "The head nightwalker in town sent his youngest to steal enough energon to start a business foothold in the mortal's market. Young Tracks, the naïve and greedy lordling, wants stolen energon to fund his whoring ways since his parents cut off his finances. And lastly we need energon to keep us in the trade without being fingered for stealing the energon in the first place."

"Ratchet is in that big berth all alone, sprawled openly, seductively and waiting hungrily for our attentions, and you want me to care about _your_ precious energon?" Sunstreaker deadpanned even as he projected his fantasies across the bond.

Sideswipe sighed as he desperately attempted to ignore his brother's words and the accompanying images, "You have no sense of adventure." With a shrug the red mech turned deeper into the warehouse pulling stores of energon stolen from the palace earlier that night. With a grin he glanced at his brother, who finally grinned at the ploy his brother was using.

"Lordling takes the stolen palace energon, attempts to pay the brothel mistresses with stolen rarities and gets fingered for all your misdeeds since we came into this pit begotten city."

"Our misdeeds dear brother, ours; you helped me steal the energon from the palace, _and_ you stole their credits which paid for Ratchet's new cloak, _and_ –"

"And I took the paints and the canvases from that spoilt lordling's precious suite of rooms that he was absolutely wasting. Primus, you're annoying." Sunstreaker cursed as the pair shifted the stolen mill energon to the back of the warehouse, moving the palace energon to the fore while they bantered. "_Now_ can we go?"

"Not yet, brother." Sideswipe stepped back into the shadows, guise rising to hide him from mortal sight, "your part is not yet over."

Sunstreaker huffed dramatically as he stepped back and joined his brother, casting his guise to include the palace crates as they vanished into the deep shadows. The illusion over the merchandise making it appear as the stolen mill energon the young lord was anticipating.

* * *

><p>Ratchet wrenched himself from his nightmare flux, rejecting the montage of Decepticons and Autobots slaughtered within the sacred walls of Steeldale's holy temple. Despite the night terror induced fear that trembled through his lines and relays he woke feeling safe. With a sigh, comforted and contented he snuggled deeper into the chilled, firm embrace – <em>embrace<em>?

_Suddenly awake he moved to fling himself from the encircling arms, only to be stopped without effort by all too familiar faces looking worriedly down on him. It was déjà vu. He had awoken after their love making chilled and alone, spark agonizing that he had been tumbled in the berth and left without warning. And, yet, hours later, in a room that had been locked from the inside with them somewhere off doing whatever they did for fun, the merchant twins were back in his berth counting his intakes as he rested._

"_You were having purges," Sunstreaker prompted gently, using an archaic term for the night terrors Ratchet had only come across in ancient texts from long ago. Violet optics watching Ratchet's face he waited next to his twin for the healer to speak_

_Vocal processors frozen, Ratchet could only stare at the mechs who should not have been there yet were. "How the slag did you get in here?" He finally demanded, voice hard, optics shining with a confident light he in no way felt, but he'd be slagged before he let the ruffians in his personal space find that out._

"_Arachnia did assign us this room first." Sideswipe reminded the healer gently, dangling a key above him with a triumphant air. Ratchet scoffed with a gust of air. The pair smelled of stale energon and heady perfume, their optics the wrong hue yet Ratchet could not place why. With a sinking gut he figured they could have only gone to the brothels and knew he would never be able to keep the pair's attentions._

"_Have fun out there?" Ratchet finally sneered, wrinkling his nasal ridge at the familiar, heady perfume surrounding them his interface circuits warming mindless of his wish to send the pair from his life forever._

Ratchet pulled himself from his disturbing recharge, glancing outside he knew the morning would come shortly. Shuddering, he donned his healer's robes, gathered his satchel and fled the too silent room. He had much to do, and not enough time. In the back of his processors he could feel the nightwalkers from Pax Crystalia stirring, and silently wondered why his unconscious mind had made the merchants into the very creatures he feared. A shifting in the back of Ratchet's processors alerted him that his time was up, they were here within this city the nightwalkers of Steeldale had arrived. With a nervous spark he strode into the darkness and the many patients in need of care.

* * *

><p>"I thought that brat would never leave." Sunstreaker spat venomously as they finally, <em>finally<em>, returned to the Black Fang and their waiting healer within. Tracks had spent hours double checking _each and every_ fragged crate for damaged merchandise before loading it up on his accompanying transport mechs to return to the palace. In addition to taking most of the night, holding such a meticulously detailed glamour was tiring. His nightwalker childe snack was wearing thin already.

_Sideswipe merely nodded mutely as they slipped silently into Ratchet's locked room. Just as Sunstreaker had described, Ratchet lay sprawled across the berth, sheets tangled between his legs, night shirt riding high to reveal one bare thigh and just a sliver of that tantalizing, cherry red, perfectly sculpted aft. Without a thought Sideswipe moved to a hidden safe in the room's wall, pulling from it a single cube of their special blend. Despite having fed just recently, the thin energon of the nightwalker childe Ransack had been a mere appetizer compared to the intoxicating nectar filling Ratchet's lines, the mechblood of the __Dubhan ceann chòsach._

_Sunstreaker and Sideswipe each downed a cube of their mechblood substitute, drinking the heavy brew in a single gulp before approaching the berth and the object of their desires. As soon as the berth room door shut Sunstreaker slipped from his clothes, sliding lightly onto the berth and gathering the resting healer up into his arms. Sideswipe, constantly amazed in the changes in his twin from before their imprisonment to now watched Sunstreaker's confident motions with brotherly admiration. The mech Sunstreaker once had been would have never held this strong surety at attaining so admirable a creature's affections. Comfortable that Sunstreaker was settled securely with their lover Sideswipe slipped onto the berth, and slid into Ratchet's unconscious embrace._

They finally reached the door to Ratchet's locked room, the fantasy playing through their processors shattering like a soap bubble bursting on the wind as the stared at the empty berth waiting rumpled and cold in the dark, still room.

_:: He left us. ::_ Sunstreaker breathed, systems falling silent to match the hollow, bleak, emptiness of the room.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** This was origionally a prompt by DeathStallion and chimeradark on LJ. All transformers are property of Hasbro/Takara and their respective creators. I own nothing.

* * *

><p>It always hurt when the symptoms started. Sideswipe could feel it in the trembling in his muscle cables, the sudden weakness in his fingers. He hid it from Sunny, sealing their bond. He watched as black fingers trembled as he struggled to clench his hand into a fist, failing continually until he could no longer feel his arm at all.<p>

Sideswipe looked up from his hand, smiling at the shoppers meandering through the marketplace. "Ah, ladies, you're loveliness rivals the beauty of the new fallen snow," He waggled his optic ridges with exaggerated suggestiveness, earning amused twitters from the morning shoppers. He leaned casually against the edge of his stall letting his weak and trembling arm rest as he spoke.

"It's cold today, and I've just the right mid-grade perfect for warming you up." He pulled a series of small silvery cubes from below his countertop, allowing them to rest in the pale sunlight.

Optics bright, the femmes leaned closer, watching in awe as the cubes responded to the weak morning light, natural pearlescent shimmer brightening while the softly falling snowflakes turned to vapor as they landed on the cubes.

"Oh! Bayonet it's amazing. Can we get them?" The tallest of the three asked as she loomed over her companions' shoulders to stare at the small cubes. The others smiled indulgently up at the obviously younger femme.

"We're supposed to be getting supplies, Cross-Blades; not indulgences." The third admonished even as she stared longingly at the warm cubes now shimmering in the frosty air.

"Why not, Stiletto? Lady Esmeral did tell us not to get too cold. We'll take three." Bayonet finally declared as Sideswipe continued to smile as he listened to the sisterly banter.

"Th-Th-three i-i-i-t i-i-i-sss." Sideswipe stammered in the cold, internally cringing as Sunstreaker watched his every move hawkishly. "I might have to get one as well." He covered his worsening symptoms with a longing sigh towards the radiant cubes and a roguish wink for his patrons.

The femmes giggled at his antics, dimming their optics appreciatively towards Sunstreaker's unwavering gaze before sauntering off with their purchases, providing free advertising as they warmed freezing hands and chilled systems with their warm drinks.

_You're shutting down early then we're finding Ratchet._ Sunstreaker ordered over the bond, moving to his twin's side to help with the sudden influx of sales.

_He's still avoiding us._ Sideswipe murmured softly, weakly as he coyly juggled energy cubes singlehandedly to draw the crowd, nearly dropping them as Sunstreaker shoved his metaphysical way into their bond, stealing away Sideswipe's pain.

_Not for much longer._ Sunstreaker replied firmly, once Sideswipe's pain had lessened and the red prankster could finally move more easily.

They worked throughout the day long past the lunch hour and late into nightfall. Yet, no matter how much they yearned to feel the medic through their inner connection Ratchet continued to firmly shut them out as he had since they day after they had seduced him.

_Smug with their duping of the spoiled lordling Sunstreaker and Sideswipe strode on silent pedes through the darkness of Blackfang Inn in the early hours of dawn. Expecting to curl around Ratchet's resting frame, and watch him as he dreamed they slipped into the shared suite only to find it empty._

_No note waited for them, no sign the healer had ever been there. They rested uneasily in disturbing silence waiting for their systems to recover from the long day in the sun. Despite the wax that protected their frames from the painful effects of the sun, they still were exhausted from their plating constantly regenerating through the day._

_Come dawn they found only First Aid moving silently through the halls, their miniature bodyguards for the apprentice healer nowhere in sight, but their scent nearby._

_"Good morning, is Ratchet up yet?" Aid greeted genially, eyeing the pair uncertainly._

_"He already left." Sideswipe replied darkly, voice surly and hurt._

_"Good," Aid grinned smugly, "May I ask you two a favor?"_

_"Why should we help you?" Sunstreaker snarled darkly, making Aid backpedal swiftly from the fearsome looking merchant._

_"What do you want?" Sideswipe demanded of the apprentice, angry at being the one duped, hurt that the healer had loved them then left._

_"Ratchet is only one mech. He is afraid the nightwalkers he freed will come after you, just as he fears for me and 'Jack. Ten years ago his method of helping the villages one by one worked, now," Aid shook his helm, "This region is on the border of the Nightwalker horde from Kanon. The healers here need to be able to stand on their own throughout the winter without Ratchet. That's why I was assigned to Ratchet. My journeyman obligations were fulfilled before I left Imperial City. I need the healers of Pax Crystalia to assist the surrounding villages, that's why I need you two to hire runners to deliver letters to the different wards."_

_"Who cares?" Sunstreaker turned away, spark hardening towards the healer, ready to fade into darkness, longing for the aching nothingness from their imprisonment._

_"Jack says he's afraid. If he gets too attached, _they_ might come for you. If that happens then it's Ratchet's fault, just as every spark lost in Steeldale, Greensteel, and Coldsteel Garrison lie on his spark. Only losing you to the night walkers, and finding your bloodless husks would kill him." Aid placed the letters on the bar along with a satchel of credits. "He has to confirm my efforts with the five wards I finished yesterday, and he has six to visit on his own. I have four others, then we have the destitute the day after. We will leave tomorrow." Aid watched the somber pair momentarily before turning towards the inn entrance. "Do what you want. Just remember he has more than the desires of his spark at stake. Every winter he endangers his life for others, how have your attentions been for anything but your own pleasure?"_

Sunstreaker shoved the memories away as late evening faded into night. Their last customers faded into the darkness with their treasures. With the stall finally closed for the night Sideswipe sagged onto Sunstreaker's stool unable to stand, exhausted from his inherent glitch. Systems trembling, stuttering and starting from the cold he gasped trying to cycle vents that continued to seal themselves off.

As Sunstreaker sealed the stall, ensuring that none could access their stores a fluid, soft, vaporus litany of profanity trickled through the thin winter air, growing in volume and substance - and inventiveness as the speaker drew closer. Curses that brought the twins to a standstill made the pair look up in amazement. There, being drug through the snow by a huffing Wheeljack and a grim faced First Aid was Ratchet, optics shining in fury, face plating vibrant with life as he fought against his brother and his apprentice.

"I am not slagging going near them and that's final!" Ratchet roared, voice cutting off as his gaze landed on Sideswipe, spinal struts stiffening as he wrenched himself from his captor's grasp. "Why in the slagging misfired _pits_ was I not summoned sooner? This could have been treated without this much pain fragged hours ago!"

"We don't need your pity _healer_" Sunstreaker snarled fiercely standing between his brother and the mech who had used them.

"Pity?" Ratchet asked with line chilling calmness, optics glinting in a manner that made Sunstreaker backpedal until he pressed against Sideswipe's seated frame. "I don't pity morons who know they have a condition that requires a healer, spend two slagging _weeks_ traveling with said healer then blithely, as you please, never once mention said condition." Ratchet pushed past Sunstreaker to Sideswipe's side.

Kneeling fluidly he looked over the red frame, sensitive hands taking in the chilled plating, noting temperatures no mortal should sustain. As he knelt there, a familiar fragrance tickled his nasal ridge, stilling his movements as dawning realization chilled his spark. "Get him into the Wanderer's Roost." Ratchet barked to 'Jack and Aid, grabbing Sunstreaker by the arm, forcing the taller mech to look at him.

Sunstreaker looked at Ratchet's brilliant optics, enraptured as he had been from the moment he registered those optics dimmed in the pleasure of the thrall. Staring into optics fierce and determined he found the depths of Ratchet's indomitable will shining before him.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't steak you throughout the spark right now, nightwalker?" Ratchet hissed as all the sensations through the mental connection he shared with the Steeldale nightwalkers, the strange night fluxes, the feeling of being watched even when he was alone suddenly fell into place.

Sunstreaker gasped as Ratchet leaned in close, optics bleeding to brilliant green with his fury. The healer was transformed, glorious in his rage he once more stole Sunstreaker's spark. He raised a perfect golden, hand, the guise masking his ruddy hue fading as he traced the healer's furiously clenched jaw.

"Kill me, or walk out of our lives the result is the same. You saved our fragmenting spark when you first walked into Steeldale. We felt you, in our eternal tomb, your brilliant spark freeing us from the void we had fallen into. Then, despite your fear, and your mortal longing for the Unmaker to take your pain, you saved our frames. You, only you, are the reason we exist. The reason we turn to artificial mechblood instead of feeding on nightwalkers."

"What?" Ratchet roared, optics narrowing to dangerous slits as he focused on Sunstreaker's last words. "The mechs of Coldsteel were mortal!"

"They hurt you." Sunstreaker hissed defensively as he sheltered Ratchet with his frame, looming over the healer as if shielding him from the world. "And, we were starving."

"Why Nightwalkers?"

"Sideswipe gets sick on mortal mechblood." Sunstreaker shrugged, his voice no longer rich and controlled, now lost like a youngling's and looking like one himself.

"Has this happened before?" Ratchet demanded, dragging Sunstreaker to the inn by an arm, steering the larger mech effortlessly to a chair in the suite the inn keep had assigned them. The suite he had not stepped foot in since he learned the merchant twins had followed him from Pax Crystalia here to Crystal Spire.

"Our keepers just bled him when it did then made a new batch of young Nightwalkers to feed him until he could revive." Sunstreaker replied blandly. "Can you bleed him?"

Ratchet shuddered at the description of such barbaric treatment. Spark chilling as he thought of the hundreds who had perished before their imprisonment to sustain them. "Aid, I need a basin, towels, scalpel." He turned to Sunstreaker hesitantly, "Do you have any of this mechblood alternative ready?"

Smirking Sunstreaker pulled two cubes of shimmering blue from the cupboard in their suite, "There is a reason we never fed on you, here."

Shutting out the golden menace Ratchet turned to the berth room, pushing past Aid to Sideswipe's spasming form. "Jack, fetch -" Ratchet paused, several pieces of the puzzle that was the twins beginning to fall in place.

_The most misunderstood ... veil born lycan and nightwalker ... if they went into the sun they would be rendered into ash._ Ratchet looked back at Sunstreaker, fear playing along his relays. "Get me my hunter kit." Ratchet had kept all his lessons on being a hunter close to his spark, along with lessons learned from other types of hunters he had run into over the passing vorns. His kit, a hidden cache of weapons and fiend specific vials to combat the monsters of the night, would hold the strange potions and rare herbs he needed to keep the red nightwalker alive. The nightwalker he owed his very life to.

Sunstreaker watched with worried optics as Ratchet worked on Sideswipe. Like their past keeper's the contaminated mechblood filling his lines was bled out. Only, Sunstreaker knew too well, they did not have enough substitute to refill Sideswipe's tanks. In the eons before their imprisonment they had fought for their lives constantly, this however was a battle of a different sort entirely.

His mind brushed closer to Sideswipe's the idiot silently crowing throu the agony that Ratchet was actually looking at him, touching him. Despite the fond bemusement that filled Sunstreaker for his brother his mind wandered to the past and the life they had left behind so long ago.

* * *

><p><em>The crowd roared, fists pounding chest plates and shields to further the violence of the battle beneath them within the gladiatorial rings. Five beasts circled the paired younglings in the ring. Crimson and gold the pair circled each other, backs together, as they matched the pace of the beasts circling them. They were young, they were strong and everyone loved them, wanted them to win and die with excruciating pain and didn't care which they witnessed.<em>

_A resounding gong reverberated through the mechs' frames releasing the beasts and gladiators for the fight. Metal clashed on metal, fangs and claws ripping against the bare metal of the young mechs' armor. Unfazed, undaunted the pair the pair whirled, using bare fists and spikes torn from the howling forms of their opponents they turned five larger beasts into three piles of slag to the approving howls of the audience._

"_Show offs, those were Lord Megatron's best beast fighters!" The gladiator pit boss snarled, cuffing the smaller younglings harshly. "Keep killing our best and you will be served as chew toys on the next lycan hunt."_

"_Try it, we'll kill them all." Crimson snarled, white-violet optics glaring proudly up at the taller nightwalker. Known only by their colors, the younglings, not yet grown had no names and their color designations were rarely used. The pit boss shoved the pair roughly into their cells, welded metal cubes that kept any light from entering. Small servings of energon waited within, no one reached into either of the pair's cells when they were inside. Too many hands had been lost that way…_

* * *

><p><em>Fully grown, their frames now bristling with weapons, armor thickened to be nearly indestructible Crimson and Gold were unleashed on the world. Directed by urgings they had felt from their earliest memories the slaked their thirst for spilt energon and terror from their victims in the palaces and castles of the world. Their feasts turned entire families into ghouls for their master, into new turned younglings to increase their master's strength and a sea of corpses for his glory.<em>

_:: Why for him? :: Crimson asked spitefully as they surveyed yet another speck of a town turned into a sea of ghouls. :: Why all this for him? :: _

_:: What else is there? :: Gold countered, unaffected by the carnage, uncaring of the sadistic glee that washed in from their master's side of the connection. Violet optics the color of spring flowers met and held as each challenged the other._

_:: They were laughing, earlier. Smiling and talking. I didn't know mortals could laugh – like us. ::_

_Crimson and Gold shrugged, they had no answers. Turning they melted into the night, guises rising over their features to mask them as mere mortals passing through to the next town filled with living prey …_

* * *

><p><em>Iacon, Imperial City of the same named province, the sparkling jewel of the new, young Nova Prime. The city sparkled in the darkness, the people called to their curious natures. Crimson smiled, teasing a local merchant as he bartered for energon wine.<em>

"_Here, we'll need this for tonight." He handed one of the freshly obtained crystalline flutes of magenta energon. Gold only nodded dark violet optics unstable in the moonlight. Crimson sighed, Gold got worse after every death. Maybe it was the promise of ending the cycle. Their lives had grown weary long ago._

"_Come on Spin-Out, Primus don't do this. We take down Iacon tonight and we're free tomorrow." Crimson whined as he resorted to their rarely used spark names, waggling the cube entreatingly before the blank face of his twin._

"_Sun," Gold murmured as he stared off into nothingness, his face raised to the dark sky._

"_No, that," Crimson pointed above them, "Is the moon."_

"_Skid-Out," Spin-Out sighed dramatically, "I want the sun, I'm tired of darkness. I want the golden light the mortals talk about." Gold looked over the torch lit courtyard filled with stores and wares. "There is no beauty in the moonlight."_

"_Then we make tonight spectacular. Tomorrow, I'll get you the sun." Crimson smiled at his twin, vowing to finally break the connection that held Gold firmly tethered to their master's will. They grinned their forced smiles at each other, sauntering off into the darkness…_

* * *

><p><em>Clean, plating buffed perfectly smooth and wax polished to a high shine, they stood ready to face the first rays of the sun. Spin-Out kept his optics locked on the distant mountains just graced with the first light of false dawn. Skid-Out kept his optics locked on his twin.<em>

"_How did you convince Master to let us go?" Spin-Out asked pensively as the slim tracing of electric blue brightened and faded back into darkness._

_Crimson sighed, "Do you remember the last time we were in the ring?" _

"_Yes, Master placed a wager with Lord Galvatron that we would be given to the last mech standing in the ring." Gold looked to his brother nervously, "But we were beaten by Lock Down."_

"_Uh, actually _you_ were beaten by Lock Down. I just went with you to the surgeons." Crimson flinched at his brother's frown, "I went back into the ring."_

"_How did you win?" _

"_Well, I didn't. I paid SinnerTwin to change the bet, and Cutthroat to kill off the other winner. According to the legers we freed ourselves." Crimson finally smiled. He knew his latest stunt would kill them both eventually, but for the first real smile to ever grace his twin's features that rivaled the glowing dawn for its beauty, Skid-Out knew it was worth it._

* * *

><p>"Sunstreaker," Ratchet's voice pulled the yellow nightwalker from his musings, across the room Aid and Wheeljack starring with near tangible terror at him pulled him fully from his musings. He looked down at once sunny yellow plating to be greeted by his old sunset golden hue and cursed as he realized he had lost his guise. "Sideswipe is stable now."<p>

Ratchet stepped back, fists clenched tightly at his sides. "How the Pit did you two keep this from me? From 'Jack?" he snarled as long constrained emotions finally loosed themselves.

"We've had a lot of practice." Sunstreaker replied flatly, wondering in his silence if he would have to feel Sideswipe's spark shatter when Ratchet left them for good.

Ratchet shook his head in tightlipped denial until he could finally get his voice to work, "He's suffering from impurities infiltrating his neural relay centers. Jack has tested his blood against several potions and we think we've found one that works. I – I need a sample of your's for comparison." Ratchet hedged, wishing he could delete the surge of warmth that rushed through his lines as Sunstreaker looked up at him gratefully.

Without question the nightwalker held out his arm, giving silent permission for Ratchet to do as he wished, even bleed him dry if it would save Sides. He wanted to watch Ratchet's hands as he worked, but found himself staring at Ratchet's optics as they held steadily on his task despite the raging emotional turmoil that surged behind their caring depths.

"If you terminated us your life would be simpler." Sunstreaker finally spoke as Ratchet handed Jack the vial of shimmering, bluish mechblood. Jack and Aid whipped their heads aroung to stare at Sunstreaker in horror before smartly vacating the room at a near run.

Ratchet let them go, grateful that he did not have an audience as he turned with slow, deliberate, menacing purpose to stare down the heathen nightwalker looking abashedly at the door. "You – would have me – terminate – _my own patient?_" He asked with lethal calm that rose into a bellow of rage. "How _dare_ you even suggest that! First and foremost I am a healer. I do not _kill_ my patients!"

Sunstreaker found himself on his pedes backed up against the far wall behind him to evade the healer's wrath, green optics nearly blindingly bright and hands that glowed with fearful intention that made his armor crawl to get away.

"You were hunter trained." Sunstreaker pointed out as Sideswipe shifted and moaned in his restless slumber. "You know our weaknesses, how to terminate us."

"I am a healer! My hunter training was years ago and aside from _advising_ villages on how to defend themselves against your kind I have never used it." Ratchet snarled as he savagely punched Sunstreaker and immediately froze as the cheek plating on Sunstreaker's face began to darken and crumple beneath his fist.

"No!" he retreated, backpedaled in dismay at having damaged one of his patients.

Sunstreaker raised a steady hand to brush the charred plating from his face, looking calmly down at the grey-black granules that smudged his hand. He huffed, and flicked away the grime, looking to Ratchet helplessly. "Any other mech would have been in pieces before he got that close. No one has ever lived after damaging my plating."

Ratchet gulped, optics bright, scared of what Sunstreaker might do, appalled at what he himself had done, and listened mutely as Sunstreaker continued. "I can't hurt you, I can't hate you for leaving us. I can't even stay angry with you for breaking our spark."

Ratchet blinked his optics, head shaking slightly in confusion, "You left me alone, cold, sticky and without any reason! You two seduced me, I didn't seduce you."

The perfect features lifted into a bitter smile, "That was not the plan. Our supplier took most of the night with negotiations we should have been there holding you when you awoke."

"What?" Ratchet asked looking between Sunstreaker's bitter face and Sideswipe's unconscious form.

Sunstreaker finally stood, approaching Ratchet's too still form as he tensed for whatever blow might come. Instead, Sunstreaker only gathered him with infinite gentleness into his arms, holding the healer close. Ensconced within the nightwalker's arms Ratchet found himself unconsciously relaxing as if he had always been meant to be here, within the golden embrace.

"We killed the mechs and nightwalkers that had hurt you. We stole your burning thoughts of what you would like to do to them. You have our admission of guilt." Sunstreaker whispered, forehelm nestled against Ratchet's shoulder, bending becheechingly into the smaller mech's cautiously returned embrace. "Our fate is yours to decide."

Ratchet stood silently as he held Sunstreaker's suddenly trembling form while his thoughts spiraled over the last few weeks since Coldsteel Garrison. These two were nightwalker hybrids posing as mortal merchants. They had followed him like loyal beast hounds through two cities and three villages, uprooting their profitable merchant stall the moment he moved on.

He wanted to remain bitter at them. He desperately wished to keep hating them for using him, but somehow it was devolving into a horrid love ballad of misunderstanding, one of those nasty sappy songs that ran on endlessly while only the young fools stared with moon-optics towards the skies wishing for their own traumatic loves. With a huff of annoyance Ratchet pressed his nasal assembly into Sunstreaker's bent chest, inhaling the rich scent of nightwalker and high quality wax.

"You both need your rest." Ratchet finally spoke, pulling a sedative tipped needle from Sunsreaker's exposed neck cable. "And I'm not ready to forgive you just yet." With a grunt he maneuvered the unconscious Sunstreaker to the berth beside Sideswipe. Once the twins were adjusted he looked down on the 'terrifying nightwalkers' and saw only young mechs with too hard of young lives. He shook his head sadly.

"I need to go check on 'Jack." He spoke aloud, turning for the door and the brief respite from having to feel the restrained emotions that seethed beneath his calm facade, seeking to escape and make him a worthless wreck. There was a reason, he reminded himself disgustedly, why he did not pursue relationships on the road. They were just too damn taxing.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **This started from a prompt on lj by chimeradark and deathstallion. I blame this all on them. As always, I own nothing, not even the idea, woe is me.

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><p><em>Harken young spark to my tale of love's folly listen well. For though thou thinkst' the loss of love is deadly, the fleeting of love's loss 'ere brings new love unending.<em>

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><p>Ratchet gently shut the door from his suite and leaned back wearily, helm thunking heavily against the stout door. How had things gotten so complicated? The question spiraled in his processors even as he turned his attention to the strange symptoms Sideswipe had displayed.<p>

The hardening of the primary energon lines from poisons in his mech blood, the aggregates blocking the neural relays making him immobile. If these had occurred hours or a couple days after feeding on mortals it would make sense but not – what? Time seemed to become elusive as he counted – nearly six weeks later. Some contaminants in mortals could take that long, but it took continual slow poisoning for the effects to set in.

No, Ratchet was positive, something else was at work here. He moved as other patrons of the inn moved past, glancing in concern at the master healer who looked worn to the underplating. Ratchet merely nodded to them and strode purposefully towards the room shared by 'Jack and Aid.

He pushed open their door, glancing worriedly around the silent room. The twin beds and in suite table was covered with vials and journals, evidence of a healer and deranged alchemist sharing minimal living quarters. Worried at the silence of the room Ratchet made to call out to them until a sharp blow from behind landed soundly on the back of his helm. Staggering, cursing soundly he rounded on his attacker and came to a dead stop when his optics landed on First Aid. Unrepentant and standing tall the journeyman healer held a wrench in his hand.

"What the pits?" Ratchet asked flatly, optics darting between Aid and 'Jack leaning casually against the door watching the spectacle.

"Are you ready to listen now or do you still want to kill your patient?" Wheeljack asked flatly, his calm words chilling Ratchet to the core.

"What are you talking about?" Rattled and angry Ratchet rounded on his brother.

"Sideswipe's symptoms are a physical manifestation of a curse." First Aid filled in pulling an ancient tome Ratchet had never seen before from his berth. "Do you remember our last normal day? It was early morning and I was panicking over a myth."

"Yes," Ratchet replied hesitantly, "You asked me if nightwalkers were real."

"Uh huh, do you remember that myth?"

Ratchet rubbed his helm bemused, "The old story of the nightwalkers that nearly ended the world.

"Uh huh, the ones sealed by the Great Priest. I found the original text from Alpha Trion in the Temple here in Crystal Spire. They let me borrow a transcription of it. You might find this interesting." First Aid leafed through the age worn text, a newer copy of the dilapidated original that scribes of Primus Temple had transcribed repeatedly over the passing centuries. Finally finding the location he wanted Aid began to read out loud.

"_Today the will of Primus has been done. The Blood Twins, the infernal nightwalkers no mortal can slay have been ensnared within their eternal tomb of cold iron and granite. By the divine incantations of the Creator they will never enslave the world with their nefarious ways. _

"_However my assistant decided to make an alteration to the eternal curse, a way out. He ordained that only one of pure spark seeking their release without gains alone could set them free once more._

"_I know these creatures, what they can do and have done. If their will be loosed upon this world unchecked once more they will destroy it utterly with their long pinioned fury. To ensure such a reality never comes true I have made assurances that they will never run alone. Should they lose their benefactor's affections of any kind, or even believe they have, they will sicken and die within the fortnight." _

Ratchet gaped, looking from Aid to Jack in shock. "He's dying because of me?" The thought twisted his internals and froze his spark. He never wished ill on the mech twins, never sought to harm another if he could help it. Yet, he was killing the very mechs he had fallen in love with.

"Yes you titanium helmed twit!" Aid snapped. "They have doted on you every day since I showed up. They gave you your cloak, helped with the room fees in Pax Crystalia, they even assigned those miserable mini guards to me just so I wouldn't travel alone. What have you done for them?" Aid held his hand up forestalling the rebuttal, "_We know_, you're on rotation, this is your assignment, but fraggit Ratch what's wrong in letting them love you and giving a little back in return?"

Ratchet gaped, world spinning as everything seemed to reverse itself on him. Aid hit him, 'Jack yelled at him and he was killing the two best things in his life. "So what am I supposed to do, go back to them gush my apologies and miraculously see Sideswipe all better? Life doesn't work like that!"

"Says the mech who performs miracles," 'Jack growled spinning Ratchet around to face him fully. "I spoke to Lady Flipsides before we left, Sideswipe and protection glyphs on Aid were the only things that kept him alive in Unicron's Gate. You _owe_ them Aid's life, and yours. If nothing else you owe them that. They only owe you their freedom, and thanks to that priest _you_ are their master, and their executioner. They are enslaved to you whether they like it or not."

Frozen, sick and facing a world that spiraled before his optics Ratchet balked, how could he force Sunstreaker and Sideswipe to be his slaves? What right did he have to keep them at his side for however long he lived – how long? Suddenly a greater fear burned through Ratchet's spark, of him living a short mortal life and taking the pair down with him. Horrified, and suddenly desperate to ensure he had not killed them with his cold selfishness he fled from the overcrowded room, back to the unconscious twins.

"Did we push him too hard?" Aid asked uncertainly as his master fled the room.

"Nope." Jack replied as he turned back to testing the twins' blood. "My brother is as thick as they come when sparks are involved. Let him fret, you'll see once he gets his processors in right he'll make everything better. He always does."

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><p>Ratchet slammed the door behind him, intakes gasping as he counted the soft breaths of the twins. They were alive. That confirmation goaded him into action, he still had a chance to make this better. He pulled his healing kit to the berth side, swiftly stripping Sideswipe down to his plating and began a full examination looking for any ailment present within the red twin.<p>

Hands busy he catalogued every inch of plating, every curve and plane. He traced seams he had never seen before and fine tracing scars that bespoke of injuries so drastic that even a nightwalker should not have survived. How long he worked, he had no knowledge. He could not tell from the glowing candles adding additional brightness to the room if daylight yet shone or if the night still ruled the heavens. This city, his duties, the many ill and wounded cared for in other wards across his district suddenly no longer mattered. Only here, these two mechs, only they registered in his processors.

What seemed like an eternity flashed by in a spark beat, before he was sealing the last section of plating back in place on Sideswipe's frame. Ratchet sighed, not weary but relieved. The hardening of the fuel lines and thickened nodes of the neural relays had diminished. Not by much, but some. Sideswipe yet had hope.

With the hopeful prognosis Ratchet turned to the still unconscious Sunstreaker, repeating the process and finding to his horror even more fine scars tracing along the shimmering golden armor. Beneath the shiny exterior Sunstreaker's chassis was horrific from old damages and suddenly Ratchet feared he knew why the vain mech who always focused on his exterior perfection had such terrible ancient scars lacing through his under plating.

Sunstreaker had allowed their family, whatever family they had had back then, to focus on Sideswipe's condition and all injuries were hidden, covered and allowed to fester in ways that produced scars even in powerful nightwalkers. Ratchet's opinion of the pair slowly altered through his examinations. Sideswipe had been the more fragile of the two. Sickening when contaminated by too much mechblood and Sunstreaker, the more doting of the pair protected him the only way he could.

At least, Ratchet thought as he stumbled across several scar tracings on Sunstreaker's chassis near his interface circuits, he hoped that was all it was. Otherwise he was dealing with victims of the worst sort of abuse. He swallowed thickly, and worked on the scars tracing in deep, long trails from spike housing to spark. Buffing, gently mending he made the scars diminish as he had with the rare tracings along Sideswipe's frame.

Finally, finished, weary and somewhat feeling as if by tending their old wounds he had made himself whole, Ratchet finally sealed his healing kit. Like the past nights since they had come to the inn he turned to the couch for his rest, and pulled up short just before he sat down.

…_He had, somewhere in his recharge, led himself to believe that he'd wake up to them staring at him, counting his intakes as he rested …_

The memory came back like a blow to the internals, nearly doubling him over with the remembered sensation of having been used. He turned looking to the pair on the berth and sighed. They had left him with the impression that he had been used. They, however, had been used by him. He buried his face in his hands, nearly keening his grief. He had used them.

Finally, spinal strut straight and shoulders back and strong, he returned to the berth. With a sigh, wondering if this was really his best idea, he stripped down to his tunic and slipped between the twins. Tonight he would watch them as they rested counting each intake and thanking Primus that they yet lived. Sitting against the head board he pulled them closer, one then the other, resting their helms against his pelvic plating and thigh as his hands ghosted over their helms.

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><p>Brilliant sunlight striking First Aid's shuttered optics wrenched him painfully from deep recharge. He sat up wearily, blinking away the spots blurring his vision. Ratchet had been a slave driver since they left Pax Crystalia. Now, at least, First Aid knew why. He scrubbed his hands over his face and pulled himself from his berth, noting wryly that Wheeljack had already vanished from their room.<p>

He emerged from his room moments later staggering from exhaustion still heavy in his frame. He needed his morning ration, and to get out of the inn before Ratchet woke and came out bellowing for their work to be done. Despite the trepidation of facing his mentor First Aid could not shut out the memory of his words to Ratchet the night before. A cold, dreadful feeling poured through his spark as he reached the closed door.

What if the twins had terminated in the night? What if Ratchet, grief stricken from Jack's and his accusations, had self terminated to follow them? The horrific thought of finding the three of them cold and grey, entwined in a frozen lovers' embrace made him tremble as he pushed open the door – and stared. There on the berth, lay Sideswipe and Sunstreaker naked as they day they were sparked lying against Ratchet, barely covered by his tunic asleep as if watching them, hands possessively placed along their helms.

"Let him rest." Jack whispered by Aid's side, smiling with his face mask down. "Maybe I'll become an uncle after this."

Aid shut the door and turned on his roommate scandalized, "You can't mean _that_!"

The alchemist shrugged with a roguish wink, "Hey, changed nightwalkers can't spark younglings. I know, I've tried as has every other sorry slagger in Goldstone. Once changed our interface array dies somewhat.

"Born nightwalkers, however have no such difficulties. Besides, our creators have been praying to become grand-creators since Ratchet left for the healing academy. Chromia thinks Ratchet is ten years beind her chronometer setting."

"Oh," Aid murmured while they headed towards the back door to the inn, one that led down into underground tunnels 'Jack used to travel by day. "Thank you Jack, for helping Ratchet."

Behind them, looking squeamish from the discussion they had to hear Cliffjumper and Bumblebee followed silently, the bodyguards to the apprentice. It still stung the pair to their laser cores that Wheeljack had gotten the drop on them their first morning guarding the apprentice. Yet, ture to their words they had never told Aid nor Ratchet who they were. Wheeljack took care of it and the terrifying nightwalker twins couldn't do anything about it – which made Cliffjumper smirk every time he saw them.

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><p>Sunstreaker slowly came to consciousness, optics heavy from his drugged recharge. His berth was warm, warmer than it had been since Ratchet had left them, somehow believing they had used him and left. He curled tighter into the berth, wishing for a second chance, for a way to make amends to their beloved healer. The spark that had freed them from their eternal prison the bright light in their endless darkness had left them. Only, instead of finding a smooth flat mattress beneath his hands he found curved hip plating and soft tunic material twining about his fingers.<p>

He booted his optics looking up disbelievingly at the pale, pallid features of Ratchet's resting face. Part of Sunstreaker froze, somewhat disbelieving the prayers of a nightwalker being answered by Primus. Monster's did not dwell within the Creator's light, they only knew darkness. Above him Ratchet shifted, head lolling uncomfortably to the side and intakes whistling shrilly from the strain.

Sunstreaker snorted in amusement, the healer was going to be too stiff to move if he stayed sitting up like that. Shifting easily he moved to his knees, pushing Sideswipe's still slumbering form gently aside to pull Ratchet down between them where he belonged. Sunstreaker curled around the resting healer in his arms, tugging Sideswipe to rest once more against the white plating. Wondering if this was the second chance at happiness he had prayed for, or if this was the last moment before they terminated from Sideswipe's hardening fuel lines and his own broken spark.

_::Is he with us?:: _Sideswipe's presence asked weakly across their bond to his brother. Deep lingering hope tinged his mental voice.

_::For now::_ Sunstreaker murmured back bleakly. He could not believe in good fortune, history had shown him such was folly. Why else would every good thing in their agonizing existence be stolen from them?

Despite Sunstreaker's melancholy Sideswipe smiled slightly, frame too taxed to even boot his optics. Still he leaned closer to Ratchet enjoying the healer's warmth. They rested as the morning sunshine through their window brightened, relishing in being able to hold the healer.

_:: Didn't he say he could sense us? The nightwalkers?:: _Sideswipe finally asked, feeling restless from the long, enforced bed rest.

Sunstreaker scrutinized the healer's face intently, mind going back over the last few weeks, recalling the healer's words. Ratchet had, somewhere, mentioned felling the nightwalkers of Steeldale. Of sensing their presence nearby and closing in while in Pax Crystalia. Sunstreaker frowned, mind paralleling his brother's as they came to the same burning question. _:: Then why can't we feel him? ::_

Optics slitted Sunstreaker thought over their dilemma. They needed to know what Ratchet thought and how he felt. Yet they could not trust to words. They had to know the depths of his spark. With a smirk Sunstreaker leaned forward, kissing lightly along Ratchet's strong jaw and neck. Nuzzling close, hands tracing exposed seams along the white chassis, smirking as the healer shifted restlessly in his recharge. The healer's pale lips slowly parted, glossa tapping his lower lip plating with a huff of increased intakes.

_:: Find him, ::_ Sunstreaker ordered his twin casting Sideswipe like a hawk after prey to seek the tenuous bond between the healer and them. Hands and glossa mapped the healer's swiftly heating frame making Ratchet writhe slightly beneath him. In the back of his mind Sunstreaker felt Sideswipe pull away from the twin bond seeking Ratchet's spark. As his brother pursued their lover's connection to them Sunstreaker continued his delightful toils of waking their lover with arousing caresses.

"Not that I'm complaining, but is this the only way you know to wake me up?" Ratchet asked thickly, sleep still heavy in his processors. Optics deepened to late sky blue of needy desire he could only focus on Sunstreaker's attentions. Mindlessly he reached for Sunstreaker, pulling his lover closer in a deep kiss, the past weeks of angst forgotten in his haze of needy, sleepy lust. Glossae tangling they moved together hands tracing along sensitive seams, igniting ribbons of burning lust coursing through each others' frames. Fingers mindlessly delved beneath armor plating searching out the spots that would make the other writhe deliciously.

They moved languidly in their lovemaking neither rushing as they built their mingling desire. Sunstreaker continued his gentle nips, for once his desire to _enthrall _his lover little more than a mild hunger letting him focus on enticing Ratchet's unbridled lust. In the back of his mind, distantly from Sideswipe's side of the bond deep frustration seeped towards him as Ratchet continued to elude their intangible clutches.

Shifting swiftly, Sunstreaker flipped his position putting Ratchet above him in a neat twist of their frames, "I want you in me." He whispered harshly in the healer's audio freezing the white frame above him.

Ratchet pulled back, searching Sunstreaker's twilight dark optics hesitantly, "Are you sure?"

Sunstreaker could only nod realizing that he was trembling in anticipation of taking the healer's spike. He smiled as Ratchet leaned down hungrily consuming him with his searing kiss. Hands now hot as magnesium flame burned their way down his frame igniting his circuits into needy conflagration. He needed the healer _now_.

As if sensing his urgency Ratchet was suddenly between his spread legs kissing from knee to thigh nipping intermittently drawing wanton mewls from the golden nightwalker. Sunstreaker wanted to seal his lips, to cease the needy sound he never knew he was capable of making. As the golden mech tried to silence his own cries Ratchet nipped sharply at the pristine interface panel tasting rich lubricant while the tang of high quality wax mingled in his olfactory sensors.

Gasping at the stimulation Sunstreaker's panel snapped opened with a soft snick. Writhing and undulating as Ratchet's glossa lapped teasingly along the outer rim of his valve, teasing exterior nodes made Sunstreaker moan his pleasure so deeply the bed frame vibrated. Ratchet swallowed dryly glossa delving deeply into Sunstreaker's wet, dripping valve stimulating the sensitive surfaces and buried nodes while drinking desperately of the sheer amethyst hued lubricant that tasted of Primus' heavenly nectar.

It wasn't enough Sunstreaker could not find the words to demand what he needed and only mewled his complaints as he longed for something _more_ filling him. He thrust himself against the healer's mouth pushing the searching glossa deeper into his clutching channel, needing, longing to be stretched by Ratchet's thick, hot spike.

Suddenly Ratchet pulled away, reeling as if slapped in his need. He had barely slipped his glossa from Sunstreaker's depths before thick fingers worn from years of work slipped into the nightwalker's soaked entrance stretching and stimulating the innermost depths. Shaking, optics too bright with desire Ratchet slipped his fingers free of the clenching nirvana Sunstreaker offered.

Teasingly, with deliciously slow ecstasy Ratchet thrust his burning spike into the achingly cool drenched channel. Sunstreaker writhed as the burning heat filled him clinging desperately to the white frame above him seeking to be ever closer to Ratchet. Fully seated, their frames pressing almost painfully close Sunstreaker knew it still was not enough. Ratchet's spike pulsing within him in time with the dawn fae's pounding spark the press of searing plating that radiated blistering heat tight against his frame and still Sunstreaker needed more.

Sideswipe's presence along their twin bond appeared then, delivering the gateway to knowing Ratchet's spark to satisfy Sunstreaker's aching need to be one in every way with the healer above him. Slipping along the mental pathway he slipped deeply into Ratchet's burning desire, bathed in his tangible fears and achingly tenuous affection for the brothers that dominated his attention. Only when his need to know his place in Ratchet's spark was sated could Sunstreaker finally move with the healer; his lust trebled in intensity.

Suddenly desperate to feel the healer moving within him Sunstreaker grasped desperately for the form impaling him and forced the other to move. Ratchet ground his hips slowly against Sunstreaker's building the nightwalker's desire slowly as he fought the stronger form's intent. Sunstreaker keened, spark singing from his chest as the connection to the healer flooded with desire and intense need.

Desperately Ratchet finally pistoned his hips thrusting ever harder, the shriek of metal impacting metal filling the room with the sound of overworked intakes and systems burning too hot adding accompaniment to the rhythm of their love making.

Above him Ratchet shifted, dark jade green optics hazy with lust, his spike reaching deeper as Sunstreaker was spread obscenely across the berth allowing Ratchet to reach a hidden node that made the world explode behind Sunstreaker's optics spiraling him as he overloaded lost in all consuming rapture.

Ratchet gasped as Sunstreaker's valve tightened desperately about him making his thrusts smaller and strained before he finally found his release. His world explodes while static consumed his vision and all his overwhelmed processors could register was the _feel_ of Sunstreaker.

Sated, they collapsed, intakes heaving while they rested. Ratchet felt strutless and blissfully lethargic as Sunstreaker's valve continued to milk his spike. Both trembled and shuddered, desperate and grateful Ratchet gently kissed Sunstreaker down from his high, soothing the larger mech until the last of his trembling had ceased. Then the memories returned.

_Are you ready to listen now or do you still want to kill your patient?_ Wheeljack's echoing words from the previous night forced the horrible events to revive blindingly behind Ratchet's optics. The last two weeks tumbled through his processors so much of his memories blurring by while others, more painful and despicable held frozen behind his optics branding his selfishness and callousness into his spark. His optics snapped open as the memories over took him and he found himself staring straight into Sideswipe's sated, weary optics.

Sideswipe rode his brother's overload as if it were his own, drowning in the emotional torrent that flooded in from Ratchet and Sunstreaker's sides of their bond. His systems hummed contentedly, the ghostly presence of Ratchet's spike filling Sunstreaker almost too much to take in his weakened state. Still he would rather face the burning sun unprotected than lose this connection.

He watched as Ratchet's strutless frame suddenly stiffened, worry and fear flooding in from the healer's side of the bond and suddenly he was staring into worried green optics. "You're alive." Ratchet breathed, an unsteady hand tracing Sideswipe's face and making the residual agony of his illness fade with the ghosting fingers.

Sideswipe sighed, leaning imperceptibly against Ratchet's hand as his optics shuttered enjoying the caress. "Can you forgive us?"

"You?" Ratchet sighed, pulling out of Sunstreaker with a groaned hum. He turned to face Sideswipe completely, "Aside from not leaving a note, you did nothing wrong –"

"Good," Sunstreaker shrugged slightly pulling Ratchet down to lay between them once more.

"That's it? I put you two through the Pits for weeks, you nearly self destruct from my actions and that's it?" Ratchet asked bewildered, his spark writhing between a dozen emotions all dark, all directed at himself.

Sideswipe weakly pulled a hand to his lips, kissing the cherry red plating lightly, "Yes," He gazed deeply into optics deepening from forest green to dark depression blue. "You feel everything so strongly, especially your fears."

Ratchet froze, suddenly realizing what the crimson nightwalker was saying. "You – you're in my processors."

"No," Sunstreaker turned Ratchet gently to face him, "We can only sense what emotions you feel. We never wanted to control your processors, we just needed to know your spark." The golden nightwalker leaned forward, capturing Ratchet's lips in a gentle, worshipping kiss.

"What next?" Ratchet sighed, he was not done with the twins, not by a long shot. They still had a lot to answer for, but for now they just needed to rest.

"We need to get cleaned up." Sunstreaker pulled Ratchet from the berth with one hand and gathered his brother in his arms. Turning he headed to the in suite wash racks grateful to finally have that steamy shower scene he had been losing rest over since they had last made love to their healer.

Ratchet sighed slightly once the hot spray washed over his frame then looked over Sideswipe's weakly standing frame with a dark optic leer. "Too bad Sideswipe's not in peak condition."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** This was origionally a prompt put up by DeathStallion on DA and ChimeraDark on the LJ Twins-x-Ratch comm.

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><p><em>Listen younglings, and listen well for this is your final warning. The nightwalkers still stalk the earth with potions and magics that preserve them from the sun. They hide their optics neath colored lenses, their faces just as yours and mine. Younglings beware for now you know the nightwalkers are no longer. Walkers only of day and night, they who are immortal. So watch your backs, your shadows too for one thing still holds true: The walkers of night and day have no reflections and only a pale winter shadow on the brightest summer day.<em>

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><p>"<em>What do you want with the healer, mortals?" Bumblebee trembled as he stared up transfixed at the white nightwalker above him. The beast had him and Cliffjumper pinned against the filth covered wall in the dark alley, a single arm pressed effortlessly across their chests firmly enough to make their armor creak with agonizing strain. Bumblebee wanted to tell the creature, to spill all his secrets save his own life, but this nightwalker possessed optics the shade of lightest lavender. <em>

_Nightwalkers showed their power in the intensity of their optics. The older, more powerful ones had optics darker than midnight, deeper than the final, consuming kiss of death. The memory of the nightwalker pair in the Broken Helm with optics of dark twilight kept them mute. If this young one could destroy them with a single arm the others would do so much worse. They kept quite not to save their lives – those had been forfeit the moment the red and gold nightwalkers had caught them in the shadows. No, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper kept silent for the sake of their souls._

"_Ask the nightwalkers of crimson and gold. They know why we are here." Cliffjumper ground out breathlessly, optics burning with helpless fury…_

Bumblebee bolted up from his berth, intakes gasping from the remembered flux. Wheljack had proven himself to be a good mech despite being a nightwalker and First Aid was one of the few mechs to treat them as equals despite their size. He chuckled silently in the pre dawn darkness, the true terror was Wheeljack's big brother. Ratchet had been – less than enthusiastic when he found out about them. No, he had been livid. Bumblebee had never seen quill pens become lethal projectiles before. The roaming vermin, scraplets, that fed off the meager scraps of energon of mechs had found out otherwise. Bee still shuddered at having to the pull quills out of six of those small frames, all terminated with pin point accuracy by the enraged healer.

Yes, that had truly been an awakening. To discover that a mortal lived that was more terrifying than three powerful nightwalkers had been a truly terrifying experience. Finding out that said nightwalker was the brother to one and quasi-lover to the remaining two had been less than comforting.

Bee slipped from his shared berth in silence, allowing Cliffjumper to sleep in. Across from the berth they shared, First Aid slept on the other. Both healers had run themselves ragged between the small villages leading to Crystal Spire and attending all the healing wards in their two days before the winter storms hit.

Bumblebee looked the younger healer over carefully as he passed. Their imposed rest had been good for the healers, allowing them to recover from the arduous journey. Still, Bee could not shake his unease. It was the quiet calm that was getting to him. Their third day of being locked within the city of Crystal Spire, trapped from the raging storm that had cocooned the city in a deep blanket of snow. The city dwellers had carved tunnels in the hard packed snow using the excavated blocks to seal every entrance leading to the underground chambers spread labyrinth-like beneath the city.

Now, sealed between the packed snow leading underground and the ever thickening layer of snow above they had nowhere to go but the inn and what few stores and homes their series of tunnels led to. This, Ratchet had informed them later, was normally his two week respite in the middle of the long winter circuit around the villages. This time their oh so merry band of mechs and monsters had only each other for company.

After weeks of watching their backs and guarding the young healer it left Bee and Cliffjumper anxious, looking for the shadows to leap out at them, evil nightwalkers come for their souls. Knowing they were trapped with three of the monsters did not help their disquiet, and knowing Ratchet could cow them all only made the isolation harder to take.

* * *

><p>Wheeljack sighed contentedly, grateful he had summoned Bluestreak to Crystal Spire before they had left Pax Crystalia. Now with the height of winter upon them and the constant whiteout that had engulfed them that kept all within their homes Wheeljack had little to do but enjoy their solitude and being with is lover.<p>

The inn keep, Oil Slick had sent the last of his temporary travelers to safer quarters days ago before the widow of the southern passes being open finally closed. With the winter travelers safely out of the city the massive warren of ancient buildings and new constructions had turned into an echoing void of ice and twisting tunnels. Since the tunnels had been dug out six days ago they had not seen any others outside of their crew.

Even Oil Slick had left for safer quarters. The inn seemed overly large and echoing about them yet the strife and turmoil of the previous week had vanished. Ratchet and the merchant twins seemed to have finally gotten past their differences, although their arguments were spectacular to watch. It never got old, watching as a seeming mortal made two ancient nightwalkers from another time cringe in terror.

"You seem happy, well you normally seem happy, but happier. I thought it was because you were with Ratchet. He is your brother and you like each other but now I think you prefer to be out of the Sanctuary." Bluestreak looked up from his sprawled position on the floor, ever present long bow lying beside him.

"Maybe," Wheeljack smiled, his face mask for once completely absent from his frame. The gaps in his denta where his fangs had once been only made his smile more endearing to Bluestreak, and Jack knew that just his smile would win most anything from Bluestreak. "They shared their anti-sun wax with me, the twins, that is. For the first time that I can remember, I've been able to sun bathe. I did that, before you came. Did I tell you? Everyone thought I was insane sitting out in the snow in only my short trousers basking in the weak winter sun. My plating still felt blistered from the heat afterwards but it was worth it.."

Bluestreak sat up, laying his head in Wheeljack's lap, embracing his lover's legs gently. "Then we shouldn't go back." He looked up to Weeljack's face, normally closed with the barest trace of a smile he now seemed free. "You can learn to make their wax and mechblood substitute. We would never have to see you face the hunger. Prowl and Jazz can make a refinery and make Sanctuary self sustaining. We companions wouldn't have to worry about draining ourselves. Jacky, if you could do this, we would all be free."

Wheeljack smiled, pulling Bluestreak up into his lap, wrapping lethal arms ever so gently about the smaller mortal's slim waist. "Alright, I'll spend the rest of the winter figuring out our salvation." He smiled, nipping gently at his lover's soft lips as he stood, heading for the large berth in the next room. The isolation was definitely a good thing.

* * *

><p>Ratchet sighed, torn between insanely happy, contentedly wrapped securely between his lovers and borderline insane from their constant, doting affections. He turned to a new, clean page in his ever present tome of notes diligently chronicling the few random patients he had cared for since the tunnels had been finished and they had been abandoned in this lonely inn.<p>

Behind him, serving as backrest and masseuse, sat Sunstreaker. Periodically gentle kisses pecked his neck, telling of the golden mech's affections. In front of him, Sideswipe lay sprawled between legs, exposed chest serving as his writing table. Ratchet found himself randomly chuckling as he worked, wondering how his lovers had come up with their strange arrangement and how Sideswipe was managing to stay still for so long. He was sure he would have to make up to them for working later, not that he minded. He found their new isolation did have some perks.

They had come to this fragile point of complacency, all equally wrapped up in each other in this secluded island of cold silence. Yet, Ratchet felt a constant urgency within his lovers, some deep longing need that he could not fulfill and as always, he wondered how much longer he would keep their interests.

"You're thinking too hard." Sideswipe chided lightly, turning his helm to place a soft kiss on Ratchet's thigh. "That quill hasn't moved and you're silent."

Startled, looking from the now blank page he had turned to and the nearby candle that had burned halfway to its holder. "So I was," Ratchet replied as lightly as he could. The curse upon the brothers forced them to hold his affection or perish, but what happened to them if he lost theirs? It was not a question he could answer, Aid's borrowed tome of Alpha Trion's sealing of the twins ten thousand years ago had been more vague than anything and was only adamant that they would never more prey upon the living.

"I'm bored" Sideswipe finally whined, beginning to wriggle under the heavy tome.

"Oh no," Ratchet sighed dramatically, "If my table won't hold still then I just can't work, now can I?"

"Nope," Sunstreaker replied huskily, head resting lightly on Ratchet's shoulder, audio fin pressing lightly against Ratchet's helm. "Play with us?"

Ratchet chuckled, "Sure what is it today?"

"Hide and seek!" Sideswipe cried as he slipped eel-like out from under the tome, "And you're it!"

Ratchet blinked Sunstreaker and Sideswipe vanishing before his optics like younglings. Suddenly the urgency from their side of the bond lessened. Whatever was bothering them would wait. Right now, he had eternal mechlings to catch.

* * *

><p>It was a week til midwinter, the icy tunnels had grown colder full of unnatural chill. With three nightwalkers in their group they never questioned the otherworldly cold that sent spirals of mist rising randomly from the frigid floors. Yet as the dreary days lengthened nearly to a month a dark shadow had begun to fill each and every spark.<p>

The minibots grew restless, their optics roving to and fro. First Aid seemed to snap more and Bluestreak slowly descended into a frightfully silent still. The nightwalkers were also similarly affected. The twins' fangs seemed to lengthen, their plating taking on an unnatural bluish hue that only made their dark optics seem to glow an evil black. Wheeljack seemed so ashen white like a glowing avatar from Primus' paradise. Yet Ratchet seemed to be immune around him a glowing warmth that spread and held and warmed each mech who dared sit by his side.

Outside the healer's presence though the others seemed to fade, the wait for the raging storms outside to break seemed too much for them to take. Yet the growing shadows through the tunnels stole the warmth of firelight from their lanterns leaving them with cold light that did nothing for the spark.

Ten nights of isolation had made them edgy and fractious. The tenuous quiet loving calm between Ratchet and the twins had turned into nightly battles of barbed tongues and wits. The minibots had begun random fights each taking minor damage yet neither hurt enough to face the healer's wrath. Even Wheeljack and Bluestreak, once the image of devoted love now threw barbed words at each other that drove icy needles into the ever quieter mortal's spark.

Ratchet fumed, storming through the silent icy tunnels, needing space to calm down after their latest fight. He had yelled at Bluestreak. The poor young spark had been moping, sitting silently while the storming emotions of the others had raged about him. Ratchet had just wanted to ask Bluestreak what was wrong, he could see the turmoil the youngest of their group was in, but everything went so wrong.

"_What's wrong with you?"_

Ratchet shuddered at his own words. Why couldn't he have just asked Blue what was troubling him? Or if he was feeling well? Such simple words he spoke on nearly a daily basis most of the year and now they seemed beyond his reach. He was angry with himself, angry at the twins for constantly fighting, arguing even when they interfaced. Ratchet sighed, frustrated. Maybe that was the seat of the issue, their constant need for affection and physical intimacy had not abated yet, mid way through their pleasures he found himself sandwiched between two bickering nightwalkers. It did nothing for the constant burning in his circuits that longed for release or the throbbing in his spark where he still loved the morons despite their antics.

Finally he reached the end of the tunnel – and spotted a thin glowing strip of daylight through the ice. The storms had broken! He nearly cried out in joy, but the movement of mechs beyond the ice stopped him. There were too many to count, their forms frequently blotting out the rising sun, and, Ratchet observed as his spark suddenly filled with icy dread, they were frantic. Slowly in the silence of the tunnels he heard the faint echoing of shouting.

Fists, pick axes and spades pounded on the ice. Fires burned and red hot metal sheets were quenched in the unyielding ice. Then Ratchet saw the droplets, freezing moisture on the outside where the countless vague masses toiled rolled up the icy shell dripping towards heaven. The sign of evil froze Ratchet's spark as nothing else could – then the screams began.

Ratchet raced through the long icy corridors leading back to the inn as terror gripped his spark in its cold embrace. They had been feeling _them_, nightwalkers filling the tunnels beneath the city. Their presences had been growing along with the strange violence that had filled Ratchet's spark and those of his companions. Ratchet shuddered, gratefully clutching the healing satchel across his chest thankful he had grabbed it out of habit when he had fled from Bluestreake's hurt and accusing optics earlier.

Now racing back he saw signs they had overlooked everyone complacent within the insidious thrall. Icicles grew from partially revealed eaves reaching like bare finger struts towards the concealed heavens. Drops dripped upwards to the ceiling making matching icicles pointing towards the ground. The evil within their confines so thick it warped the natural world into some surreal nightmare.

The icy walls passed by in a blur as Ratchet increased his pace, silence filling the halls where screams had once resounded. He burst into the inn breaking doors suddenly brittle from the cold as he collided into them staggering from the impact and tripping over the wooden shrapnel. He raced into the large dining room where they had last been together. Now of the once eight strong group Ratchet alone stood in the icy void that had been a warm, wood paneled haven from the cold.

Wheeljack, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stood transfixed, their frames frozen as their optics focused hazily on a brilliantly glowing flare of light. Ratchet cursed as he knocked the flame to the floor, stomping out the light to free his darkling companions from its hold.

"Fragging, motherboard blowing undead vampires have fragged werewolves!" Ratchet snarled furiously, cursing the moon borne plague wolves that spread like a poisonous fume. "Damned incense, how the frag did they do this with Eclipsed?" He stomped the burning magnesium flare doped heavily with the incense called Eclipsed that froze all nightwalkers and their get. Once the incense had been smothered Ratchet moved first to Wheeljack and then to the twins, checking each for other injuries.

He sighed heavily, they would be fine, after the incense released them from its spell. It could be minutes before they moved, or it could be days. Ratchet growled as he turned to the minibots, each lying next to small pools of energon where armor had been shredded by talons and claws. With another snarl Ratchet pulled out potions to ward against vampire and werewolf bites, dosing each minibot and placing charms against the beasts around them.

Ratchet stood from where he had crouched by Cliffjumper's side unhappy that this was the best he could do for the minibots, but he still had two more mortals to check. He looked through the room, under benches, within private rooms used by serving bots where they normally provided a more intamite service for the paying customer. Yet he could not find Bluestreak or Aid.

Worried, Ratchet moved to the bar where various grades of energon were sold and found the floor torn out, leaving a gaping hole into a dark abyss. Ratchet's spark burned with fury, optics glowing a dangerous venom green. The beasts had stolen Blue and Aid.

"Primus protect them until I get there." Ratchet breathed, grabbing his healing satchel with deft hands he sealed the bag with special closures to protect the medicines, books and tools within. Then he tore open a false seam he had hoped to never have to touch again. He eyed the contents of the secret compartment, wishing he had another choice for rescuing Aid and Blue.

The black lined fabric of the hidden pouch held rows of stakes, vials of jellied high grade energon and holy water for combating nightwalkers. Powdered monkshood and silver tipped crossbow bolts lie next to a collapsed cross bow for battling werewolves and lycans. And, in the center of them all lay a hunter's visor, a device capable of seeing through the guises of any moon borne beast alongside a shimmering blue cube. He pulled the cube from the satchel, setting it on the floor and pressing a hidden switch on the side. With a swift step back he let the cube unfold, becoming the size of a wardrobe, and carrying something invaluable within.

Once the cube had unfurled itself from its mystical collapse a door swung open revealing a solid white coat of hunter's armor within. He had not donned his armor since his graduation, yet still his training remained sound. With swift efficient movements he slid into the plate metal and snapped the yellow hued visor over his face, strapped the weapons to his armored frame and turned to leave the room for the last time.

Just as he moved past the bar front he noticed a small mirror hanging on one wall he had overlooked before, and found himself staring at a strange mech he had never seen before. Pure white from shoulders to helm save for the yellow optic visor and dark grey chevron upon his brow. The hunter was intimidating to behold, weapons spiking up from back and sides while high shoulder guards seemed to double his real size. Behind the hunter the dining room was a mess of overturned tables and two small frames. The nightwalkers remained invisible to the glass. "It's a good thing I'm looking at my reflection," Ratchet turned for the gaping hole, "Otherwise I'd be running for the Imperial City."

Ratchet looked over his shoulder once more to his five remaining companions and prayed that they would be alright, that the two taken could be rescued, and that he was not about to do the stupidest stunt that would terminate his short life. With one last silent prayer to Primus he turned to the hole, stepped forward and vanished.

* * *

><p>"Where is he?" Bumblebee stared in terror up at the twin nightwalkers who had posed as mechs for so long. Only they now had blue-grey porcelain, ageless faces and deep violet optics radiated hateful black hues.<p>

"Where's who?" Bee squeaked looking rapidly between the two figures above him, the sprawled, dazed figure of Wheeljack flung carelessly to the floor to the side, and Cliffjumper barely stirring from where he had been thrown under a table like a rag doll.

"Ratchet!" Sideswipe grabbed Bumblebee by the armor, hauling him from his painful sprawl under a table dangling him by one hand on his throat. "He's not here!"

Bee froze, trembling as he stared into the slightly insane immortal optics before casting his own about the main dining hall now empty of either healer's presence save for a massive tome and a note. "There," Bee pointed a trembling hand directing the infuriated nightwalker to the table.

Sideswipe dropped Bee heavily to the floor as he suddenly vanished from sight appearing almost instantly by the far table nearest the bar.

"Nightwalkers have been hunting us?" Sideswipe asked darkly, passing the note to his brother.

"'These days of anger have been from us being prey. Others of the nightwalker race have been here, entrapping us in their vile trap of dark emotions. They have taken Aid and Bluestreak, I've gone after them. Be safe.'" Sunstreaker read haltingly, his voice betraying his mounting fury. "They're dead." It was a promise of what would happen to those who had been hunting them.

"No without me." A dark voice promised violence and death behind the twins, turning they looked Wheeljack over, seeing a deep bloodlust in his optics they had never seen before. The alchemist was transformed, normally pale plating now a dove grey hue, light lilac optics promising slow death to any who hurt his lover, the apprentice or his brother.

"We're going after him." Sunstreaker ordered, turning towards the hole uncaring of who followed. Behind him the others rose to their pedes, swiftly grabbing lost or misplaced weaponry and followed the golden nightwalker into the depths of darkness.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **I own nothing, just having fun. As always this was prompted by DeathStallion and ChimeraDark.

Warnings: Contains violence and possible disturbing images.

* * *

><p><em>Full moon brightness, deathly white. Cavern darkness crimson firelight. Come ye darklings and moon-bornes who prey, come ye mortals who cling to day. Tonight you see dark midnight true in optics of the nightwalker hue.<em>

* * *

><p>The awning chasm in the floor engulfed Ratchet in blackness like being swallowed by an angry maw as he jumped into the hole behind the bar. His frame was heavy, falling too fast with the hunter's armor on. His landing was rough peds slamming into the ancient roadway with an angry shriek of metal grinding against stone.<p>

The sound tore through Ratchet knocking the breath from his intakes with its force. The encompassing blackness tinted eerie, venom yellow from his visor turned the dusty twisting corridor of stalactites and niter in to a nightmare of impaling death from above. In either direction hanging spikes from the ceiling reminded him of why of why he was down here. The spikes dripped like the fangs of nightwalkers salivating over mortal throats.

Ratchet stayed crouched from his landing for all of a spark pulse, yet it was long enough for fear long forgotten and buried in the depth of his spark to rear its presence out of its enforced oblivion. Reaching tendrils of fright held him frozen like reaching hands clutching at him in the dark. He had never spoken of it to his family, his true reason for leaving the ranks of hunters for the healers. It was not the shedding of mech blood or the stalking of lethal prey that turned him on his path. It was his own cowardly terror.

Slowly standing, trembling in his armor badly enough to rattle like broken chips of steel in the wind, Ratchet remembered the fear he had buried constantly all his life. Fear of nightwalkers, fear of his brother, fear of his enormously ancient and powerful nightwalker lovers. Fear of being in this serpentine corridor that showed only feet beyond where he stood before curving blindly from sight and remaining in darkness eternal forever.

"_He's our baby brother, sir. We've sheltered him, maybe more than we should have. Please, protect First Aid out there …"_

The words of his apprentice's brothers rang through Ratchet's spark like the tolling of Primus' bell on prayer day. The resonating echoes in his mind chased the fear from his frame, shattering the spell that bound him immobile in the darkness.

First Aid! Ratchet finally turned, following the faint track in the thick dust upon the floor of passing, heavy paws. He trembled at the sight. He faced more than nightwalkers here in the all consuming darkness. They had werewolves or lycans, he was not sure which, but either was more than he could handle alone. Even Ironhide would have had Chromia at his back with archers in the wings to face even two or three nightwalkers.

No, Ratchet knew this was a suicide trip, a foolish attempt by a mere healer to save his charge. What could a mere mortal – Ratchet halted mid faltering step in the darkness, his pulse hammering in his lines with renewed hope. He was _not_ mortal! Once more he had forgotten Sunstorm's words that he was dawn fey, a natural enemy of the nightwalkers. Short of being out right killed he would not fall to the nightwalker's kiss, and more than even other nightwalkers he held a stronger resistance to their thrall.

Ratchet's spirits rose, his energy renewed as memory restored his true nature. Ratchet deftly pulled a heavy vial from the bandolier across his chest where numerous others waited. He stood tall in the darkness, optic visor shining like the eerie optics of the darkling hunting weaker prey. The vial in his strangely white hand raised before him, his other hand folded into a sigh of wording as words of power poured through the sealed facemask to resonate through the darkness. Around him in the tunnel a mist slowly formed of the holy water that created a miasma of agony in wait for nightwalkers approaching from behind. With a nod Ratchet dropped the vial, slipped his crossbow into one hand and a fresh bolt into the other as he pressed down the hall into deeper darkness.

* * *

><p>"What's wrong with 'em?" Cliff asked pensively eying the nightwalkers writhing before them in the darkness as they slowly disintegrated into dust.<p>

"Old hunter trick called the Veil." Jack replied darkly, optics glimmering with an unholy glee as the dissolving nightwalkers perished in agonized slow motion. "The air is seeded with holy water from a spell." He slipped his face mask and yellow optic visor on, "It's lethal to nightwalkers." Wheeljack strode through the mist, kneeling only long enough to rip the sparks from the chest plates of the writhing nightwalkers on the floor leaving them as blackened piles of metallic ash never to rise again.

"Hmm, I like Jack this violent." Sideswipe smiled approvingly finger and thumb against his chin in a pose of deep contemplation. He stepped towards the shimmering white holy mist of the Veil, deep violet optics shading towards violent sunset orange as his and Sunstreaker's features elongated, fangs growing longer and pedes ripping through their thick boots forming massive claw tipped paws.

"What the Pits!" Bumblebee shrieked, back pedaling from the morphed nightwalkers, his back slamming painfully into the nearest wall.

"We're half lycan." Sunstreaker rumbled with a condescending animalistic snarl, his dark lip curled over ivory fangs in a disturbing facsimile of a smirk, "Or didn't you get the notice?"

Bee gaped as the figures retreated; he looked to Cliffjumper, equally agape at the vanished forms of their nightwalker companions. "I didn't think nightwalkers and lycans liked each other _that _much."

"Don't look at me, Bee." Jumper shook his head slowly wondering just when the world turned on its head and came out wrong. "Let's go before they have all the fun." Together the pair jogged behind the misty figures of their companions suddenly turned into strangers filled with unknown danger.

The winding tunnel curved in the darkness making their trek a lethal gamble at every curve. Stone spikes reached down to their helms as they passed. Thick niter on the walls oozed slime to the floor forming slick traps that made footing treacherous in their haste. Despite the danger Sunstreaker pushed them to move faster constantly forcing Cliffjumper and Bumblebee to rush in the larger nightwalkers' footsteps or be left behind in the darkness.

"Wait," Sideswipe's voice filled the ominous silence of their journey forcing all to still as they approached a cacophony of battle cries echoing from around the tight curve ahead. Sunstreaker crouched, spread hands acting as forepaws as he crept along on all fours. He slipped forward, vanishing around the bend leaving the group in palpable silence.

They waited, mortal sparks pounding painfully loud to immortal audios as the seconds slowly dragged by. Wolves howled, nightwalkers shrieked in agony cries from creatures unknown mingled into the din of a fight. Wheeljack was motionless, a silvery statue gleaming in the rare glimmer of firelight gleaming around the corner. Sideswipe vanished into the darkness save for optics that seemed darker than the blackest corners of the tunnel they hunkered in. Cliffjumper knelt on one knee, cross bow clutched tightly to his chest as he waited, praying silently to survive whatever was causing the raucous up ahead.

"It's clear." Sideswipe moved forward in a crouch following his brother's path as he led the others into tangible noise ahead. They crouched side by side looking into a small depression in the ground ahead filled to overflowing with darklings and moon-borne surrounding a single white form wreathed in an ethereal emerald glow.

"Uh, what definition did you use for 'clear'?" Bee asked, optic ridge quirked up at Sunstreaker accusingly.

* * *

><p>Ratchet hunkered in the darkness leaning close to the tunnel wall. Ahead voices echoed distantly leading him towards a group of three nightwlakers and a lycan lounging within a deep crevasse that formed a natural room. He pulled a vial from his bandolier, pushing the silvery cap down forcing the glass cylinder to collapse into the brass bottom forcing holy water and monks hood to mix in a noxious concoction that would destroy the four darklings ahead. He crouched behind a boulder within the hall, tossing the vial into the depression ahead.<p>

Screams tore through the hallway bringing the keening wails of approaching darklings. Ratchet moved swiftly, stringing holy water drenched garrote wires across the hall the cries came from then stood back, cross bow and bolts at the ready. He waited, trembling as the cries filled the corridor. His spark trembled in his chest, his knees shaking. Ratchet forced the thoughts of tending less fortunate hunters over the vorns from his processors as the first mists of the approaching darklings enshrouded his pedes.

They were here. He stared in horrified petrifaction as wave after wave of nightwalkers ran through the garrote wires, becoming little more than steaming chunks of sparking circuits and poisonous fume before crumbling into dark ash. Still others approached, slowing behind the barrier until a lycan finally noticed Ratchet, locking optics with him – and smirked. Optics staring unblinkingly Ratchet watched the wolf slice through the wires effortlessly with sharp talons unaffected by the holy water.

"Bring him to Lord Galvatron – alive," The beast rumbled darkly, smirking as his companions bolted to the trembling hunter.

Ratchet fired his bolts as rapidly as he could, dropping the crossbow the moment the nightwalkers crossed the threshold past the corridor entrance and pulled two of his many steaks. He swallowed as more approached. He readied himself for only a fraction of a moment then charged the oncoming nightwalkers. Ratchet slammed into them, his spikes flying within his fists as fast as he could move dropping nightwalker and lycan while words he had no knowledge of poured from his mouth in a tidal wave of threats and curses that brought some to their knees in mirth giving him an easy target.

He glanced over the shoulder of the nearest opponent and found himself staring at a solid wall of nightwalkers, lycans, ghouls, werewolves and darkling creatures of all descriptions. This was it, the last stand of a foolish medic with a really bad idea.

* * *

><p>"Uh, what definition did you use for 'clear'?" Sunstreaker smirked at Bee's question as they took in the packed mob of nightwalkers and darklings attacking Ratchet en masse. Frames turned to ash had covered the floor in thick metallic ash making footing treacherous. Still Ratchet fought. The healer's hands glowed a rich green hue the color of his optics as a dawn fae as he battled the darkling horde.<p>

"It is clear," Sideswipe grinned hungrily, "That Ratchet needs our help." He leapt over the boulder they hid behind and pounced on the nearest nightwalker deftly ripping its head from its neck with a deft snap of his jaws. Behind him Wheeljack leapt after him, talon tipped fingers ripping through lycans and werewolves with a bestial roar. Sunstreaker cackled darkly, tearing through to Ratchet's position to shadow the healer, taking the burden of the battle off the white-clad hands as his taloned hands ripped through darkling and wolf alike while jaws snapped and rear claws dug furrows into the floor. Bumblebee and Cliffjumper remained behind the massive boulder shooting hails of bolts into the nightwalker horde as targets presented themselves while Sideswipe managed to pick off any opponents who drew near to the mortals' position.

Faced with unfamiliar lycans, a nightwalker and mortals suddenly protecting the dawn fae hunter the horde found themselves virtually surrounded. Their few opponents defied their numbers managing to be everywhere at once their attacks whittling away the horde's numbers.

Ratchet swung at the next set of violet optics that appeared before him fist arcing through the tight confines to reach his opponent – and staggered.

The nightwalkers were gone. Ratchet blinked, amazed at how the nightwalkers could have vanished while he still lived. He stood frozen, frame locked up as the battle craze left his systems and fear once more claimed him. Trembling, hands clenching spikes that slowly dripped spilled mechblood of darklings, nightwalkers, werewolves and lycans until his muscle cables ached and his plating went numb within the heavy hunter armor.

"Aww, they're running away." Sideswipe pouted near Ratchet, frowning worriedly when the healer neither moved nor flinched. "Ratch?" Worried, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe shifted fluidly from lycan to nightwalker, gently prying spikes from the healer's fingers and lifting the faceplate away to see his optics.

"Ratch?" Sunstreaker rumbled, fear tickling up his spine as he took in the healer's icy white optics that stared ahead unseeing.

"Oh Ratch," Wheeljack sighed, pulling a vial of strong vapors from Ratchet's healing pack slung across the rigid white back armor plating. "Creator called it hunter's pall. The spark can't handle the burden of fighting and puts the frame into lockdown. Carrier always said that the pall was more lethal to hunters than all the races darkling and fae combined."

"Will he be alright?" Sideswipe asked as he reached to hold one of the healer's trembling armored hands while Wheeljack forced the vial of potent fumes down Ratchet's throat.

"You might want to stand back." Wheeljack dove for the nearest boulder once the vial was emptied and crouched leaving the twins to wonder from where they stood protectively next to Ratchet.

"What's his problem?" Sunstreaker scoffed at Jack's cowering. Suddenly he was thrown into the stone tunnel wall and Sideswipe cried as his frame was flung to the ground both bore splotches of blackened plating, their frames singed by the dawn fae's powerful aura alone.

Ratchet blinked, frame stilling from movements he had no memory of making. He looked around the mostly empty tunnel at his companions who kept well away from him, his lovers bearing smoking patches that still bubbled from an attack the flaked crimson and gold pigments on his knuckles told him he had made. "What the slag?"

"You suffered the pall and came out of it swinging." Wheeljack grinned as he stood, "I told them to stand back, but," he shrugged. Ratchet nodded there was nothing to say, the twins were protective and they all were treading unknown territory when it came to his dawn fae heritage. Ratchet instantly moved to the twins leaning away from him into the wall. Their wide optics struck a line of fear through his spark. He had feared them for their powers, now he feared _for_ them because of his own. Wiser mechs would turn from him in self defense. Instead, they leaned into his touch as he raised his hands to their damaged plating, implicit trust and devotion radiating like spoken words from their concerned optics.

"We thought they killed you." Sunstreaker whispered so softly Ratchet barely heard, "I will not live without you."

Ratchet swallowed tightly, optics boring into Sunstreaker's proud ones. In times past he had heard similar professed words of devotion in ballads and bad poetry that had always made him queasy with the distaste that one overly dependent mech would self-terminate just to stay with his dubious lover. Now though, he knew the anguished truth behind the golden nightwalker's words. Sunstreaker was right he and Sideswipe would not live without Ratchet. Even if they wished to his demise would seal their fates. The curse upon them set in the time of Alpha Trion still held strong binding their eternal sparks to Ratchet's own.

"I know." Ratchet replied just as softly meeting both his lovers' optics steadily before finally tending their rapidly regenerating wounds.

"We'd better get moving." Ratchet spoke once he had checked over the rest of their group, standing tall his hands finally free of their trembling, he put on a brave face for his rescuers. Underneath his armored facemask and visor he gaped as the twins once more shifted from nightwalker to lycan but kept his mouth shut. There would be time for questions if they survived this.

"Good call, medic." Cliffjumper replied with a nod as he jogged past his taller companions to follow the cold hall their adversaries had passed through. They moved in an unassigned formation, nightwalkers protecting the mortals and dawn fae as they ran to catch up with the horde. Sunstreaker turned into a dark passage, his absence bringing the cries of agony as nightwalkers lying in wait were slaughtered where they hid.

The twins took turns vanishing off one side tunnel or another as they hurried to the main nightwalker camp herding their numerous opponents towards whatever main camp they held in the dark underground. Wheeljack stayed with the group protecting the mini-bot mortals with Ratchet from stragglers the twins may have missed.

* * *

><p>Bumblebee and Cliffjumper gasped to cycle their intakes as they crouched in a nearby cul-de-sac, before them the winding tunnel opened up into a natural cathedral carved from an ancient cave. Stone formations had been altered eons ago becoming reliefs depicting life in the days of the carvers. Shadowy and flickering with the light of a thousand fires they filled the chamber with fluid darkness and leaping brightness. The writhing light licked over the amassed frames of mechanoid frames innumerable in the darkness.<p>

Bee gulped at the plethora of pinprick lights violet and orange of optics shining in the wavering darkness all focused on Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Wheeljack as they pulled up sharply in the entrance of the cavern opening. Bee looked up to the Blood Twins, noting their gaze focused down below on two pale figures chained against a massive column rising against a far stone wall. "There's Bluestreak and Aid." He leaned over to Cliffjumper who had collapsed against the cool stone wall until he could once more breathe.

"How many prisoners do they have?" Cliff asked squinting into the darkness. Bee whispered the dire situation to his recovering friend describing the dark sea of living mechs just behind their stolen friends.

"Enough to feed an army." Sideswipe snarled realizing with cold fury that the nightwalkers had made themselves a larder comprised of mortals chained in the dark, protected corner of their sanctuary. Below and right before them the amassed horde began their charge towards their position. Sunstreaker grinned at Sideswipe, the pair giving ferocious snarling grins as they readied for the attack.

"Remember, keep them busy, keep them focused on us." Wheeljack hissed softly as he pulled his weapons and roared his battle cry launching himself at the approaching horde.

"You two, get high and give us some cover. Don't start shooting until we've got them distracted from Ratchet." Sideswipe grinned at the mortals finally recovered from their long run through the winding tunnels of the cavern.

"Don't worry," Jumper smirked grimly, "They won't know what hit 'em."

* * *

><p>Ratchet hunkered just behind the tallest stalagmite within the mortals' stockade. Intakes heaving he remained frozen as Wheeljack, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe launched themselves at the nightwalker army. He hated this cracked motherboard of a plan the twins had concocted. He stayed low, visor dimmed so the captive mortals would not see him against the pale pillar he crouched beside and waited as sounds of battle and death filled the hall.<p>

Finally, the many nightwalker and lycan guards ceased their tireless watching of the mortals, their attention fully claimed by their comrades' battling the rogue nightwalker and lycans. The trio should have fallen the instant the attack had started yet the powerful lycan pair seemed ancient, eternal agents of destruction Pit-bent on bringing down the amassed immortal army. Once sure the guards were engrossed in the battle opposite of the stockade Ratchet pulled several vials of holy water from about his chest, uncapped them and chanted the spell once more. Immediately he threw the vials high into the air, arching over the darkling horde to spread the Veil's mists through the cave. He turned once the last vial left his hands, scurrying for the mortals bound within the stockade to begin the evacuation.

He needed time to free his apprentice and Bluestreak. He needed time to get the mortals through the labyrinth of the tunnels and into the inn. He needed time to break them free of their prison of ice and into the hopefully brilliant sunlight beyond. Only then would they be safe from the nightwalker horde. All they needed was time, he looked over his shoulder to his brother and lovers spotting massive gashes on all three that though regenerating swiftly were also working to slow them down. All they needed was time, he realized and time was the last thing they had.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **I'm finding these fight scenes are not wanting to be written, once I get the rest just right I'll post more, which I hope to be soon.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:** This was prompted by DeathStallion and Chimeradark on LJ. I own nothing and blame them entirely. ^.~

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><p><em>Asked the friar of the demon, "What is most to be feared? On heaven and earth and all realms between and below what is most fearsome of all?"<em>

_Replied the demon to the friar, "A mortal with nothing to lose," And with his words the demon died hearing last the friar's cries for behind them both there stood a mortal carrier, her grayed sparkling lying cold and dead at her pedes._

"_The demon took what was mine and you friar treated him kind. For that which I have lost I send you both to the Unmaker's host." And so demon and friar alike fell to the mortal who lost her wee tyke._

* * *

><p>A million war cries and screams of agony deafened the audios until all that could be heard was the nothingness of the battle field. Nightwalkers appeared and vanished in a shower of blackened dust. Werewolves fell to reveal the mechs that they had once been and lycans shattered like crystalline statues upon the ground splintering into a million shimmering starlight shards. The floor was gritty with unheard somethings that shifting and crunched beneath the pedes before shattering as <em>whatever<em> it had been turned into dust. The air in the cave was thick with the metallic ashes from slain nightwalkers. Torches, once brilliant in the darkness, gleamed dully in halos of blackish dust and pockets of white mist of the Veil.

Sunstreaker panted, his lycan form shedding small rivulets of pale mech blood from numerous wounds. Despite the presence of his brother at his back he knew they would not last much longer. Wheeljack, much too young for this battle, had fallen at their feet unconscious from exhaustion. Sideswipe snarled, lycan tongue lolling despite the snarl seemingly etched permanently upon his muzzle.

The ground at their paws was thick with the debris of death. Black ashes, white crystals and the fallen forms of once mortals now grey in death. The monochromatic tableau on the ground contrasted with the garish riot of colors the nightwalkers and darklings surrounding Sunstreaker and Sideswipe made. Overhead, a cry erupted followed by more blackened ash falling to the ground. Sideswipe glanced to the ceiling where Cliffjumper and Bumblebee hid. They were surrounded by nightwalkers and down to just their own short daggers. Any nightwalkers killed now were by sheer luck alone. Sunstreaker looked to the rear alcove where Ratchet had been, now only darkness remained.

"He's safe," Sunstreaker panted just loud enough for Sideswipe to hear, a pang of melancholy joy filling his spark.

"So, its time." Sideswipe replied, glancing with tired mischief towards his brother. As one they stood taller, taking back their nightwalker forms. With nothing friendly on the ground in their way they could finally lose the restraints they had worn for longer than they could remember.

* * *

><p>"Move, quickly!" Ratchet hissed, guiding the captured mortals ahead of him through the small opening at the side of the stockade. "Follow the main corridor, you'll find a hole in the ceiling. You'll find your own way from there." He turned from the fleeing mortals, knowing he had taken too long in freeing the others.<p>

Ratchet looked to the cavern beyond, breath freezing in his intakes. Wheeljack was nowhere to be seen. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stood back to back hemmed in by the still massive horde. Along the ceiling more lycans and nightwalkers formed a moving carpet that had Bumblebee and Cliffjumper trapped in their nook unable to leave and too easy to take out.

"Give me my weapons." Bluestreak appeared before Ratchet, optics gleaming with a steady intensity he had never seen in the younger mech before.

Ratchet pulled off the unstrung bow that rested within the heavy quiver of arrows along his back over the healers satchel and handed the weapons to the other. "The instant you fire one shot they will be on us and I don't know if I can protect you."

Bluestreak looked over the horde, noting the absence of Wheeljack in its mists. "That won't be a problem." The young archer turned with deadly grace his lean frame stalking towards the large open hole leading to the main cavern. Behind him Ratchet and First Aid watched with bated breath as the archer's head shifted with a keening cry into that of a wolf's leaving the rest of his body that of a normal mech save for the thick wolf tail falling low to his calves.

"Primus blessed, what is he?" First Aid gasped seeing the archer shift from mortal to a mech-wolf hybrid monster of the like he had never before seen.

"Figures," Ratchet huffed, pulling several stakes from his depleted bandolier, "My brother would fall in love with a _faoladh_."

"A what?" Aid demanded as he stayed plastered to Ratchet's plating, hiding behind the only mech that seemed remotely mortal now that the other captives had vanished into the darkness of the tunnel beyond.

"Think of a good lycan that protects children and the sick. I've heard of them, but they remain hidden most of the time. And, its said that pissing them off is generally a really bad idea." Ratchet remarked, tensed and waiting as Bluestreak notched four arrows and let them fly, watching as the bewitched shots flew through a pillar of the Veil and split into dozens of shafts of light each piercing a nightwalker surrounding the Blood Twins.

"Primus!" Ratchet gasped, eyeing the archer warily. "He's pure blood and _old_."

"What do you mean?" Aid asked, awed as the nightwalkers went into a frenzy attacking each other the instant their brethren were rendered to ash.

"_Faoladh_ are spirits, they are not born nor do they die. When they appear as mortals they inhabit the body of a sparkling and live as mortals for but one lifetime." Ratchet looked hard at the archer's back noting the ethereal silver glow about the young mech's form.

"He has only a dozen arrows." Aid whispered, "Even if each one becomes a dozen more they are still too many."

"I know," Ratchet replied softly, placing a hand on his apprentice's shoulder, "Follow the footsteps of the others and be safe. You have never been a warrior this is no place for you."

Aid gapped, optics wide as Ratchet passed Bluestreak, a firm hand squeezing the archer's shoulder as he passed leaping over the stone barrier between the horde and their position landing silently to face the monsters closest to them.

Within the center of the horde Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had stood as statues throughout the fray the air seething with a silent fury that coalesced into a midnight purple corona of evil about them. Fangs always pristine and sharp now became terrible daggers the gleaming white of new fallen snow. Their mouths opened in reverberating screams. Worse than the cry of the banshee, more piercing than the wail of a carrier holding her grayed child to her breastplates, their scream filled the air pulsating through the cave and all within. Once blood crimson and sunset gold they shifted, their true age showing in their very plating as the Blood Twins turned the purest mercury silver. Their optics became the purest white blazing fury as the twins focused on their enemies and _vanished_.

Ratchet's hands glowed brilliant green in the darkness, his weary muscle cables screaming in exhaustion from his many battles yet still he fought on. Bumblebee and Cliffjumper continued to hold back the ceiling-bound nightwalkers that constantly tried to reach into their small hiding spot and Bluestreak continued to fire his multiplying arrows over the horde. Still more of the moon borne and their minions poured into the cavern from caves beyond, their numbers unending like a tide of evil undermining the very foundations of the land.

First Aid held back, pressed against a tall stalagmite as he watched his friends do what he could not. Aid's hands hand known only healing in the city, the life he had led before his journeyman apprenticeship and thereafter Ratchet had kept him safe from all harm now, he watched as six battled untold scores before him and Wheeljack remained absent from his sight.

Suddenly in the mouths of the largest caves leading into their cathedral of stone the frames of untold masses of nightwalkers and lycans geysered into the ceiling forming a fountain of black ash and white crystals as scores perished from the unknown power. The geysers erupted again and again casting the horde into chaos as unknown powers rendered the untold masses into nothing.

Ratchet fought harder now, no longer to slay the nightwalkers and other creatures of darkness but now to keep his pedes in a veritable tide of bodies fleeing to the corners of the dark labyrinth from the new entities that hunted them. In an instant Ratchet found him carried away screaming and writhing like an offering to an arcane god for sacrifice and flew into the air with the horde below him as the geyser shot up once more. Only strong hands caught him, blazing white optics looked him over carefully before setting him gently on the ground.

"You should have left with the others." The being spoke in a resonating tone that ringed like the voice of Primus through His oracle. Ratchet felt breathless as he looked on the radiant being and felt humbled before it.

"I couldn't leave you two or my brother, Sideswipe." He looked up at the red hellion transformed into something as ancient as Primus and more beautiful than the moon. "I need to find Wheeljack."

"We have been guarding him. I'll take you." Sunstreaker appeared beside them all around more geysers lifted unknown numbers of the undead and immortal into the air leaching their existences away in a mere breath. The once golden nightwalker now identical to his twin save for the audio fins turned to Wheeljack's position.

They moved through the horde, their once powerful enemies seeming little more than sheep that shifted in mindless panic from hunters. No one stopped them and it was like walking in a disturbing dream neither kind nor nightmare but a strange unsettling tableau that would remain upon waking and for eternity pressed into their processors.

"Wheeljack!" Ratchet moved to his brother not bothering to look for wounds he simply gathered his brother into his arms and moved to the relative safety of the stockade. First Aid reached over the stone barrier between them, helping his mentor to pull Wheeljack from the battlefield. Once free of the main cavern First Aid knelt at Wheeljack's side just as ghouls and fiends of every description overran Bluestreak bearing the shrieking archer to the ground.

Ratchet turned, leaving his brother in his apprentice's hands as he attacked the nearest fiends and found to his horror that the ghouls he faced did not vanish when they touched the Dubhan ceann chòsach aura radiating from his hands. Ratchet gulped looked up into the blind optics before him as broken, crooked denta were bared in the hideous facsimile of a smile.

"Now you die Dubhan ceann chòsach, and we'll take the _vampyres_ down with you." The creature hissed, looking over its shoulder as the death grey ghouls filled the cave tearing apart the remaining nightwalkers and lycans as they targeted Ratchet's lovers, the silvery nightwalkers aged beyond reckoning into the pure _vampyres_ of old.

"We won't make it easy on you," Ratchet ground out, arms trembling to hold back the ghoul as others pressed in around him. He glanced behind him, to young innocent First Aid who knelt over Wheeljack a small, worthless dagger held up in defiance against the encroaching ghouls. 'So this is it.' Ratchet looked back to his opponent, accepting his fate with that of the others knowing that this finally was how they were to return to stand at the feet of Primus.

* * *

><p>"Cliffjumper, we're gonna die." Bee gulped, watching as the ghouls slithered along the ceiling devouring everything in their wake and heading straight for their alcove.<p>

"It's been fun – sort of." Cliffjumper replied, optics focused on the small figures of their friends in the stockade below. "Even Aid is trying to fight."

"Think we can signal the idiots to regroup?" Bee asked, nodding towards the silvery pair on the ground still battling with all their power and slowing from the constant onslaught.

"Have any rope?" Cliff asked as he took a last bolt from his quiver, "I was saving this for myself so I wouldn't change. Just in case."

"Sorry," Bee replied looking at the salvation shot kept for the moment when suicide became a better option than turning into a monster, now neither of them had that option. Bee produced a length of rope from his pack and watched as Cliffjumper tied it to his last crossbow bolt then launched their final missile to the mouth of the stockade.

"Time to go." Cliff leapt for the rope launching himself towards their friends with Bee right behind him. As Bee slid towards the small space of their last stand he whistled shrilly over the battle din hoping Sunstreaker and Sideswipe would understand. They had to fall back and this was their last chance to keep the horde from spilling through the tunnels to Crystal Spire and beyond.

Bluestreak screeched as the ghouls above him were suddenly pulled away vanishing into the horde. Where they had been now stood Sunstreaker and Sideswipe the pair slowly leaching their silvery hue away to be replaced by the scratched and tarnished, more familiar crimson and gold hues. "Thanks!" He gulped shaking with the terror he had not felt when the strange courage he knew he could never possess had held him sturdy.

"What do we do?" First Aid asked from where he knelt by Wheeljack, the white nightwalker finally regaining his senses as he came around.

"We fight." Ratchet replied, pulling energon cubes from his healing pack, "With all that we've got."

"To the last mech." Wheeljack rasped and finally pulled himself to his pedes snagging a cube of mech blood alternative from his brother as he stood. He sighed as he looked at their last meal, "To the end." The group raised their cubes as the ghouls advanced, swallowed their cubes in a massive gulp and tossed the empties behind them. Refueled and resigned they stood side by side each armed with talons or blades and waited for the final assault.

The ghouls came closer their misty forms flowing towards them in a tide of death. Closer, they could make out the colored glass that once shone from their optics. Closer, they could smell their feted breath lingering with the stench of decay. Closer, they raised their weapons and readied thir talons facing down their immanent deaths.

_Cloí le liom: tapa dtagann an eventide;_

_an deepens dorchadas; Primus, liom cloí le:_

_nuair a theipeann Cúntóirí eile agus comforts teitheadh__,_

_cabhrú leis an helpless, O cloí liom._

Words, long unheard and normally ignored filtered through the raucous of the cavern like the first light of morning blessing the new day after a storm. The ghouls slowed, uncertainty flickering across their degrading face plating. The precious words of hymnal faded and with it the small stirring of hope within Ratchet and the mortals' chests. They had heard a chorus of avatars sent by Primus to give them hope yet still they could only rely on themselves.

As if confirming their lonely state the ghouls launched themselves at their few foes ferocious glee twisting their features into hideous caricatures of mortal joy as they readied for the slaughter. Their undead frames mere finger spans from Ratchet and his friends when they suddenly were engulfed within the light of Primus and cast aside like dust upon a wind.

_Is gá dom dod láthair gach uair an chloig a rith;_

_cad is féidir ach dod grásta an scragall tempter cumhacht?_

_Cé, cosúil le tú féin, is féidir le mo treoir agus fanacht a bheith?_

_Trí scamall agus solas na gréine, Primus, cloí le liom._

Overhead a host of valkyries filled the upper reaches of the cavern that swooped and dove to snatch ghouls and the few remaining lycans from the ground below. Behind them giant wood spiders and darklings of all shapes and sizes spilled into the cavern bringing with them the brilliant blazing hues of sunlight and the strains of Primus' hymns casting the undead back to the grave.

_Eagla mé aon foe, le dhuit ar láimh chun bless;_

_ills bhfuil aon meáchan, agus deora aon bitterness._

_I gcás Sting dorcha Unicron ann? más rud é, uaigh, bua agad?_

_Mé bua fós, más tusa cloí le liom._

Creatures of all types rushed towards the stockade, the once grand horde now reduced to little more than whimpering thieves stealing towards the few opponents standing between them and the salvation of darkness beyond. Sunstreaker, Sidewipe and Wheeljack moved to the fore facing the straggling ghouls, nightwalkers, lycans and werewolves slaying them swiftly. Bluestreak searched the stockade and brought out more arrows their former captors had sequestered nearby he handed shorter quivers of crossbow bolts to the mini-bots and the three archers knelt facing the approaching monsters with new-found courage.

_Coinnigh tusa thy maitrís roimh mo shúile dúnta;_

_Shine tríd an ghruaim, agus mé ar an spéir pointe;_

_spéir na sosanna maidin, agus scáthanna vain domhain teitheadh__;_

_sa saol, i bás, O Primus, cloí le liom.*_

Ratchet and Aid stepped back, giving the others room to fight. Ratchet would step up when needed and Aid readied what supplies he had waiting for a peace he could only hope would come. Then the light of day filled the cavern and at its center stood a glowing being surrounded by a glowing corona of orange light. His voice filled the cavern as he sung the last lingering strains of the hymn surrounded by warrior priests of the Decepticon faith.

All around the glowing being darklings from Unicron's Gate in Pax Crystalia filled the room taking revenge on the gluttonous nightwalkers and ghouls that had reduced them to monsters in mortal optics. The remaining tides of battle surged swiftly and suddenly the cave, raucous with war for so long, was filled with aching silence.

The sudden silence hit them like a brick wall stealing the air from their intakes and their little remaining strength from their legs. Ratchet collapsed, falling to his knees in exhaustion as he stared at the figure he had not seen in weeks. "Brother Sun Storm," He spoke softly the face mask of his hunters' gear altering his voice. "I never thought I'd be glad to see a _Lus na Fala_."

"Ratchet?" Sun Storm approached slowly, warily eyeing the downed hunter with the bright yellow visor.

Ratchet smirked and pulled off his mask revealing his face for the world to see, his optics still the deep evergreen hue of the _dubhan ceann chòsach_. "Long time," Ratchet sighed, despite Sun Storm's sudden gasp.

"How long have you been wounded?" Sun Storm asked worriedly noting several long gashes and bite marks that had twisted and bent the hunter armor like tin.

"Wounded?" Ratchet looked down at himself uncertainly finally noticing his many wounds, the growing puddle of mechblood around him and then the wounds of his companions. As he sat there, exhausted and spent Sunstreaker and Sideswipe crawled to him, hugging him close to their trembling frames. Beside them Wheeljak drew Bluestreak to his chest and, shockingly, Cliffjumper staggered to First Aid drawing the young healer into a tender embrace.

"Huh, when did that happen?" Sideswipe asked with a rasp as he watched First Aid bury his face into Cliffjumper's chest plate trembling with the effects of terror.

"While we were too busy not looking." Ratchet replied with a smile, First Aid's brothers were going to kill him.

"The next thing that tries to take you from me will die." Cliffjumper swore, tracing Aid's face tenderly. Aid only closed his optics, letting his helm be cradled by his crush as he wrapped his arm tightly around the smaller mech's waist.

"Ratchet, can we go home now?" Aid asked softly looking wearily to his mentor.

Ratchet only shook his helm wearily, ignoring the healer valkeries landing around them that knelt to mend their wounds. "We get back to the surface and finish our route. Then we get to go home." Ratchet sighed from his position ensconced between the twins, optics closing from exhaustion despite the need to get back to the surface.

* * *

><p>Sun Storm watched with a slight smile as the heroes of the hour slowly slumped into unconsciousness all falling into deep recharge in the stockade. "Come on, let's get them to the surface."<p>

"I never thought that healer had the bearings to take up a weapon, let alone face a full nightwalker army." Lady Flipsides walked to Sun Storm's side looking on the exhausted warriors. "'The destroyers of the horde of darkness,' it has a nice ring, don't you think?" She glanced up at Sun Storm with an impish grin.

"If that gets out, m'lady, the bards will spread their fame all across Cybertron," Sunstorm spread his hand expansively, arm crossing the horizon within his mind. "And, they would kill us – repeatedly."

Flipsides chuckled lightly, "True, but for now, organize your priests. They will move our heroes to Crystal Spire. My healers will tend their injuries."

* * *

><p>Soft voices reached Ratchet's audios, scents of clean linen and healing salves reached his nasal sensors and soft hands too small to be any of his companions gently wrapped new bandages around his wrist. The joint ached with burning intensity the pain telling him he had somehow sprained his wrist during the battle underground.<p>

"Lady Flipsides?" Ratchet rasped weakly as his optics on-lined looking up to the small delicate face of the dhampiel lady of Pax Crystalia.

"Welcome back, brave healer." She smiled, "You've been asleep for all of a full day and you're the last awake. The others are in the main room watching a few of the horde survivors repair the damage they did. You, Master Healer, are a hero. Expect to be thoroughly mortified, rewarded, venerated and absconded when those lovers of yours get tired of others giving you all the attention."

"Survivors?" Ratchet asked muzzily.

"Yes, some – thirteen actually – hid in the ceiling when they realized your lot was more trouble than you were worth. They've been quite handy and have provided several detachments worth of details sent to the Emperor." Flipsides stood back, arms crossed as she smiled warmly. "When you feel you can stand and move about get up and go to the common room. You have several mechs waiting for you there."

With her last words Ratchet found himself alone in the room he and the twins had shared in the weeks of deep freeze. With a huff of weary aches Ratchet levered himself out of the far too comfortable berth and out of the room. It was time they recovered and got on their way again.

* * *

><p>Brilliant afternoon sunlight cascaded through the nippy spring air. Birds long absent for winter had returned with their songs in full volume. Early flowers were just beginning to peek through the slowly melting snow and just ahead gleaming like a jewel in the white blanket of lingering winter sat Iacon.<p>

"So, guess we'll finally get to meet your creator, huh Ratch?" Sideswipe asked with a hint of nervousness. Despite the battle under Crystal Spire and the slow journey from their northernmost city back to Iacon the biggest hurdle for Sunstreaker and Sideswipe claiming Ratchet as their own still remained. They had to convince his parents that they were in love with him – and that they were not next on the hit list.

"Afraid of a couple mortals?" Cliffjumper asked with a sneer from his position beside First Aid, possessively holding the larger hand.

"We only have to convince two hunters, you, shrimp, have to convince Aid's _four_ brothers _and_ his creators." Sunstreaker snarled unimpressed with the taunting.

"Sure, but his family doesn't make a living out of killing mini-bots." Cliff replied with a wide, shit eating grin that rubbed the twins' positions in their faces.

"What will happen, down there?" Bluestreak asked worriedly, "Ratchet and Aid go back to the medical collegiums. Ratchet, 'Jack and Aid have their families." Blue looked desperately at his new wandering family, his brothers in arms and lover and feared being separated.

"We have to report to Optimus first. All of us, we'll decide on what to do after that." Ratchet smiled with a calm reassurance he in no way felt. For the first time in years he felt like an errant youngling returning to his creators with bad grades and a letter from his instructors. Only this time he feared more for his lovers.

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" Wheeljack asked jauntily as he descended down the hill towards the home he had not seen in years, Bluestreak pulled lightly behind him.

"How come nobody ever asks what the best that could happen?" Sideswipe asked nobody in particular following Wheeljack with Ratchet and his brother in tow. Behind them First Aid tugged Cliffjumper and Bumblebee brought up the rear smiling like an idiot at his friends. How their journey had begun with a healer and his apprentice only to end with a triad of lovers and two couples he still was not quite sure of, but if they ever got their story to a bard it would make a ballad worthy of being recounted over the ages.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:***From A Prayer Book for Soldiers and Sailors 1941, Abide with me; fast falls the eventide. With Lord changed to Primus, death changed to Unicron and cross changed to matrix. Translation to Irish by Google Translate. I do not know any Irish so I apologize if the translation is atrocious.


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N:** This was origionally a prompt put up by DeathStallion on DA and ChimeraDark on the LJ Twins-x-Ratch comm._

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><p><em>Listen younglings and listen well for this is your only warning. You fear the nightwalker, dread the werewolf, feel terror at the thought of the lycan or ghoul. Yet, remember young ones for this is truth: There is always something worse.<em>

* * *

><p>Ratchet smirked as First Aid shuddered in the cool morning air, the younger healer drawing his earthen brown cloak tighter about his frame. "Cold?"<p>

"No, sir." Aid replied skittishly, bright blue optics scanning the early morning misty forest warily "Just I know we're being hunted."

Ratchet laughed, not his harsh overworked bark that mechs normally heard, but the loud, long, face-splitting grin, laugh that had been missing since winter had set in. "Ha, Aid, you're finally learning." Ratchet chuckled again then leaned closer to his apprentice, continuing in a soft conspirational murmur.

"Now, remember, _they_ have weaknesses we can exploit. Sunlight, mortal optics sensitive to snow blindness, and a natural timidness; we find ways to exploit their faults and we'll be fine." Ratchet finished with a smirk, drawing his own rose bear fur cloak about him to ward off the early chill.

"But," Aid looked around nervously, "They're nightwalkers!" Ever since the battle underground he had found it impossible to be near the nightwalkers of their crew. Fear crawled through his lines and made recharge impossible unless if he was exhausted from the day's toils.

Ratchet pinned First Aid with a hard scowl, "Yes, and the first lesson you should have learned out here is that fearing them only makes them stronger. Know their strengths and their weaknesses and you can outsmart them." First Aid looked to his mentor, amazed once more that this brilliant, fearless and terrifying medic was only a couple vorns older than himself. Ratchet had a young face when he laughed, but when he snarled or frowned his plating changed, and seemed to make him twice his age with triple the intimidating bearing. Still, his wisdom was unmatched and made him ageless in so many ways.

Aid finally nodded at Ratchet's words, their travels this winter had taught him Ratchet's lesson. The nightwalkers below Crystal Spire had been predictable to a degree when Aid actually overcame his fears to think about it. While Aid had not done any fighting he had watched and the knowledge only cemented his master's words.

Once Aid nodded his understanding Ratchet raised his hand signaling the hunt to start. Around them figures shifted in the snow, shadows passed without any figures forming them and heavy mists rose in the brilliant early spring sky filling their vision with white. First Aid trembled, he knew those around him were friends, that he had nothing to fear. Still, knowing it was _them_ hunting made him shudder.

Ratchet huffed, shoving his apprentice right into the line of fire, eliciting a yelp from the younger healer as a wet snowball pelted his face. "Gah! Ratchet!" Aid stooped as another missile flew past him barely missing Ratchet while he scooped his own fist full of snow and lobbed it at the hidden archer.

The snowball fight refused to stay in one place as the combatants shifted, ran and danced in the snow. It had been Sunstreaker's idea, the nightwalker knowing Aid still feared them and ensured the youngster would learn to be brave regardless of what he faced. Ratchet cackled as he danced aside letting snowballs fly harmlessly past him while he pegged his lovers and brother in swift succession.

"How does he do that!" Bluestreak demanded as he panted lobbing more slushy missiles at Ratchet and all missing him harmlessly yet hitting all surrounding him.

"Hey!" Cliffjumper yelled, "No powers! There are mortals here!"

Ratchet laughed, "I'm not doing anything!" He danced from yet another snowball shifting to let it pass by harmlessly and hit the red mini-bot square in the chest.

"Slaggit that does it!" Cliff roared scooping snowballs and pelting Ratchet with them at close proximity. Breath misting to mingle with the nightwalker induced mist the combatants danced through a world of sunlight and mist. Blindingly bright and murky they often saw figures at the edges that were never there. Voices echoed that had no origin making their battlefield an empty void of eerie quality and their shared brotherhood of friends and lovers.

Slowly the mists settled letting them once more see the sparkling gem of Imperial City. The white spiring capitol city in the distance reached towards the heavens like the Spear of Primus. The image was breathtaking every time Ratchet returned from his journey, and this season the glittering city seemed more beautiful than ever.

"Welcome home," Sunstreaker whispered into Ratchet's neck kissing the side of his jaw from behind.

"Not yet," Ratchet sighed, "We still have ground to cover."

Once the mists fell away the battle turned into a free for all, Aid giving as good as he got and finally forgetting what he traveled with. The fear of the nightwalkers fell away and he only saw mechs surrounding him he had come to know as friends. The chattering Bluestreak who would rather flee from danger than fight but still stood his ground when needed kept their group in good spirits with his stories. Sullen Sunstreaker filled them with trepidation of his temper and awe of his talents. Sideswipe kept them on their toes with his pranks and well fed with his constant experimenting in energon processing. Wheeljack served as their conscience in a way, he knew when to be a brat and when to behave, often leading the twins into performing their antics. Cliffjumper stayed true to his name guiding them to ignore sensibility and safety when jumping in would be faster. Bumblebee was their youngest and most innocent member strong willed and stubborn he reminded them that they had nothing to lose if they never quit. And Ratchet, Aid smiled as he thought of his mentor, Ratchet was somehow the center of their world. They followed the healer's path protected him when needed and did his bidding when his own hands were too full with the caring of others.

Their group was a strange one yet for once First Aid felt like he was coming home. _Splat_ Aid staggered from impact and fell onto his aft while around him the others cackled.

"Where were you Aid?" Bee sniggered as he helped the taller mech to his pedes.

"I was right here you – you – Ratchet?" Aid looked into the distance, a strong sense of déjà vu filling his lines. Around the bend, through the last vestiges of forest before the open fields leading to Imperial City lie a patch of air shimmering in the frigid air.

"Heat shimmer," Ratchet frowned and hustled over to where the hazy distortion originated accompanied by the thin filaments of smoke.

"Heat shimmer? But, its freezing!" Aid balked, afraid of finding yet another nightwalker blackening in the sun.

"It's clear!" Blue called from ahead, "Someone forgot to douse their campfire."

"I don't think so," Cliff groused, "Its nearly mid day. If that was a night camping fire then these should have burned out long ago. No, something's not right."

"He's got a point," Bee replied, looking the ground over with a frown, "The snow hasn't fallen for days but there are no prints.

"Then what are those – ripples? – in the snow?" Aid asked looking at the strange patterns that seemed to sweep across the crisp snow.

"Old hunter trick," Jack replied, "Layers of branches sweep the snow and keep snow shoe tracks from being seen. Someone's out here with us."

"What do we do?" Blue asked with wide optics.

"Tag!" Sideswipe pelted Sunstreaker with a snowball hard enough to make the finned helm ring. With a snarl Sunny bolted after his brother, the pair lobbing snowballs in all directions including the others in their distracting fun.

"Well, when in Paraxus," Jack grinned, grabbing fistfuls of snow and adding to the flurried chaos.

Ratchet shook his helm looking around once more and pelted Aid with two globs of snow in a row before running for his life from Sideswipe's 'snowball of doom'. The massive clump was bigger than Bee and promised to drown Ratchet in the swiftly melting snow.

* * *

><p>"It sounds like mud drying too fast." Bluestreak switched topics once again in his ever continuing dialog as they walked through the slowly thawing forest as winter grudgingly gave way to spring. After their snow battle they had paused for a mid-day ration, each finding dry clothes to ward off freezing their systems as wet clothes chilled on the body.<p>

"What does?" Cliffjumper demanded, barely holding in his temper at the constant babble that had been the backdrop of their journey since they had survived the caves below Crystal Spire. Keeping up with the ever changing monologue often proved too irritating to the red mini-bot yet sometimes, like now, the changes drew his attention back despite his best efforts to tune the taller blue mech out.

"The snow. It's melting and dripping and sounds like the river bed that was behind my home. When the summers were too hot it would sound like this kind of crinkly or like too many insects gnawing on wood. I like it."

"Goody," Cliff grumbled, "You like the sound of termites eating snow."

First Aid chuckled, "That's not what he said and you know it. Quit being grumpy, sourpuss."

"I ain't grumpy! I'm just sick of the snow and the cold and now it's wet and cold and I don't like it." Cliff rumbled grudgingly, knowing the deep snow slowly turning to slush was causing his malcontent. "Where's Bee?"

Everyone paused, Ratchet, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe walking separately ahead finally paused and looked back on the others. "Where's Wheeljack?" Ratchet asked worriedly feeling dread sink in his tank just as the first wet splat sounded against the back of Bluestreak's helm.

"Snowball fight!" Bluestreak screeched as the damp snow moved like an icy slug sliding thickly down the back of his neck. In seconds snowballs were flung in all directions in an eight way free for all. Running and cackling like younglings they darted between the trees squealing as wet drops of melt landed on helms or fell down open shirt collars to place chilled kisses on their necks.

The sun rose higher warming the day further turning slushy snowballs into watery missiles dousing their targets in a deluge of frigid water. Soaked and chilled, exhilarated and tired from their mock battle the panting mechs slowed on the crest of the last hill leading to Iacon City. Before them the shimmering gem of the district seemed to sit on a setting of pristine snow. Nothing moved, no draft bots hauled their cargo, no merchants hauled their heavy carts full of trade. The road in was abandoned two weeks before the first day of spring.

"Something's wrong." Ratchet ground out watching the eerie tableau before them with slitted optics. As they scrutinized the city below think tendrils of smoke separated from the sky rising and thickening into a pillar of blackness that filled the air with the acrid stench of once living metal being burnt into slag.

"What is that stench?" Bee asked gagging.

"They're burning the dead." Wheeljack and Ratchet replied in unison, the brothers' optics locked warily on the rising plumes of ash.

"Don't go down there," Sunstreaker murmured barely loud enough to hear, pulling the others' attention on him. The golden nightwalker stood tensely scenting the air, fingers entwined possessively with Ratchet's.

"Please," Sideswipe asked as well stepping forward to slightly shield Ratchet from the city, "Don't go down there."

Ratchet looked between his lovers then back to First Aid, then Wheeljack standing protectively between Bluestreak and Iacon. "I have to," He swallowed tightly, his voice filled with raw fear and desperation "Our families are down there."

Shoulders sagging the nightwalker twins, Cliffjumper and Bluestreak released their grips on their lovers each only nodding their support. "Then we go with you." Blue stated confidently. The others nodded their agreement Cliffjumper and Bumblebee stepping forward once more as the forward guards while Sunstreaker and Sideswipe fell back letting the other four stand in the middle as their wards.

"Let's go." Ratchet signaled their group forward hoping that whatever was claiming mechs in the city below had spared his parents, Aid's family and the ruling Primes.

The journey between the pristine forest filled with the dripping of the melting snow and the ever encroaching city passed by in a blur. The road was silent almost echoing with their footsteps as the freezing breeze warred with the warm sun.

All too soon they stood before the city gates closed and barred as Ratchet had never seen them before. In a sense of déjà vu the twins stepped forward pounding fiercely on the door but this time there was no snow, no howling wind. Nothing stirred save the slowly pluming smoke rising high above the city.

"Who demands entrance?" A guard demanded through the door not bothering to open even a peek hole to the outside.

"Master Healer Ratchet returning from my route with Journeyman First Aid and guards," Ratchet replied brusquely letting the guard stretch out the silence as nothing was spoken in return.

"You did not leave with guards." The guard challenged, the familiar snick of crossbows being armed sounded en mass from behind the thick doors. Ratchet suddenly became acutely aware of the narrow slits along the city's outer walls that he had never noticed before, each hiding an archer and a cache of arrows. He looked over the walls counting at least two hundred slits and knowing that several more were hidden where no one could see them. Murder holes, he remembered the name for them now, and wondered if he and his friends would suffer that fate.

"Picked them up after Steeldale, the outer province has gotten dangerous." Ratchet replied promptly.

"No kidding," The guard finally opened a slit in the door, a narrow spy slot that doubled as a close range murder hole at perfect chest height. "We're sending for your relations, for confirmation of who you claim to be."

Ratchet glanced at Wheeljack worriedly, "How do you know who to send for?"

"You are the master healer, sir. All of Iacon knows who your family is, and they will know if you be fibbing." There was a smirk in the hidden guard's voice that made Ratchet uneasy, whatever had happened within his town had pulled the darker side of mechs into the light, showing the inner darkness and cruelty most covered with kindness. It was a trait Ratchet was all too familiar with.

"Move aside!" Ironhide's familiar voice snarled from behind the gate before the doors were flung wide. "You sure took your sweet time!"

"Nice to see you too." Ratchet sighed, flinching when Ironhide and Chromia gasped once they saw Wheeljack standing unharmed in the sunlight.

"Uh, hi pops!" Wheeljack grinned, facemask absent and gaping holes where his fangs used to be still showing prominently in his smile. "I'm home?"

"Slaggit, we'll talk about this later." Hide swore and made a subtle sign of warding before pulling his sons in, the others following close behind. "We've got a plague, started three days ago. No one knows nothin' bout it or how its spreadin'. The healing collegia is overrun with patients, all hospitals are treating patients on the floor, in basements, even in tents on the street. We've got riots, looters, violence of all sorts everywhere. Our six prisons are full and folks want to start witch burning and lynching next."

"I need to see the patients." Ratchet strode next to his creator, "These are Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Bluestreak, Cliffjumper and Bumblebee. They're guards of sorts. These two can face down just about anything," He gestured to the guised nightwalker twins walking in sunlight as mortals once more. "He's a crack shot," Ratchet nodded to Bluestreak, "And they're pit good with cross bows. Take them and try to keep them alive."

"Yes sir," Hide snorted, "When did you become such a hot shot?"

"We'll talk about that later." Ratchet replied with a smirk, "Get Aid and me to the nearest hospital, I'll leave the city to you."

* * *

><p>It was worse than Hide had let on, more dire than the black plumes could ever explain. One in two. It was that bad, one in two living sparks were taken to Primus from the strange sickness. More than a thousand had perished in the last two days, the first patient showing up just the day before that. Ratchet checked over the efforts of the other healers, desperately looking for options. Remedies known to midwives and dentists had all proven useless. Every folk remedy known to hedge wizards and weather witches had failed. Every healer at all levels of the colegeia had sifted through the vast tomes of anchient magi and witches, healers of past ages and modern discoveries, and still nothing worked.<p>

As Ratchet went over the symptoms seeking an answer he saw fifty die in half as many minutes, all wasted swiftly from healthy with strange rust rashes to swollen, buckled plating that cracked leaking fluids to suddenly graying for no reason at all.

"Ratchet," First Aid spoke in the desperate silence, "Mortals can do nothing. You know this."

"I know," Ratchet sighed feeling as if he was setting himself up for the burning stake. "Let's go." Together they left the collegia library heading back to the many patients graying faster than any could try for a remedy. "Just –" Ratchet hesitated, unable to find the words.

"I won't let anyone get to you. I swear to Primus, no one will get touch you until the last mech is healed. I promise." Aid assured Ratchet, knowing that the panicked mechs would scream for the death of the one who could cure them pointing to Unicron's trickery in calling the pure to His side. They would never believe that Ratchet was helping, and not reclaiming the plague he had loosed upon the city for fame.

Ratchet stood tall, feeling as if he were in a dream and moved to stand at the center of the hustling healers and crying patients. With one last breath he let loose the inner aura kept tightly bottled inside and focused only on the feeling of the plague within a mortal frame, sensed the heaving bodies, the desperately pounding sparks. Then everything slowed, his vision turned white and everything was silence.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:** This was originally a prompt by DeathStallion and chimeradark on LJ. All transformers are property of Hasbro/Takara and their respective creators. I own nothing.

* * *

><p><em>Oh sweet one, how still you lay, waiting breathless for first light of day, 'neath blankets thick and sealed tight eyes hear the talons that spell your demise. Death and terror stalks these halls, slips beneath the bed and climbs the walls. Feign sleep, dear spark, and pray that you will live just one more day.<em>

* * *

><p>First Aid watched over Ratchet, guarding his mentor as the glowing veil of the <em>dubhan ceann chòsach<em> enveloped him. Shimmering in the hue of sun bright emerald the familiar green aura Ratchet produced was now molded into an ellipse twice its height in length. Slowly, inching like the growing frost in late fall the elongated orb of light radiated outwards enveloping the nearest patients and healers in its glow.

Once the light grew stable, the shape no longer rippling or sending off wispy tendrils of greenish light First Aid moved from his master's side. He ran from the hospital grabbing guards and soldiers as he went, forcing them to follow or be drug against their will. By the time he returned with twenty armed mechs Ratchet had enveloped the primary ward in the hospital he stood in. The healing aura radiated through walls and doorways as it gradually overcame the ground floor. All within the orb, once touched by its outer edges, began healing rapidly their plating losing its cracked and warped appearance returning to its healthy colors.

"What in the Pit?" One of the soldiers breathed, optics wide with fear and awe, torn between attacking the familiar figure of the healer and kneeling in worshipful awe.

"Ratchet can cure this, he can make it better." Aid looked at the soldiers pleadingly, "But if anyone interferes it _will_ kill him and we all will die with him. We need to protect him." Aid met each of their optics desperately, knowing he needed to be free to take care of Ratchet, and ensure the dawn fae didn't kill himself with the daunting healing he now faced.

* * *

><p>"Something's here." Sideswipe rumbled pausing in the line of guards he walked with who patrolled the disturbingly empty streets. "Something not mortal."<p>

"What are you talking about?" Ironhide demanded irritated with the red warrior who had stood too close to his mechling, who had touched Ratchet's arm with fond familiarity that spoke of shenanigans best left behind closed doors. "We don't have time for your paranoia."

"He's not playing," Cliffjumper replied curtly as he stared slowly around the deserted thoroughfare, "It's too quiet, and when they say somethin's here take it for gold."

Ironhide paused, neck plating prickling as the disturbing silence in the square suddenly hit him. Where had the noise gone? The groans of the sick, the too familiar crackling of massive funeral pyres burning in the distance, the chanting of a dozen sects to their versions of Primus in the heavens – it was gone as if Primus had taken the city to His spark and left only them behind. "Get ready." He growled lowly signaling the guards loyal to Iacon to take battle positions.

"Wait here," Sunstreaker ordered, slinking forward and shifting, seeming to blur before mortal optics only to reappear a beast.

"Lycan!" Hide bellowed only to be silenced by Bluestreak firmly clamping his hand over the taller mech's his mouth firmly.

"Shhh, he's on our side." The grey mech looked at Hide with a slightly unsteady grin, "You might want to keep him that way." Ironhide only nodded his head silently, optics wide and filled with a mix of terror and betrayal at finding his city invaded by a darkling brought in by his own sons.

"Good, and this time, don't scream," Sideswipe grinned ferally, dropping his guise to reveal his nightwalker form and vanished from sight.

"Now I don't know what ta make of that." Hide spoke dumbstruck, he had never witnessed a nightwalker immune from the sun – "Oh Primus."

"They're called the Blood Twins," Bee spoke at Hide's side, "They were once wrongly sealed by Alpha Trion within Steeldale. Ratchet freed them, and now they are beholden to him. They will not do anything to anger him or to cause him to lose his faith in them."

"And ya know this how?" Hide demanded looking at the three remaining guards from Ratchet's travel group and wondered what secrets they held.

"He's a dawn fae. If he believes them to be a threat he can kill them." Bluestreak filled in, tensing suddenly as the crimson and golden forms appeared ahead crouched tensely. "We're being hunted."

Ironhide fell silent, feeling unfriendly optics on him, sensing the presence of something dangerous locked within their city walls – locked in with them. He looked to his own soldiers, each focused and at the ready despite the disturbing turn of events. He gestured, pairing his soldiers off, keeping Bluestreak with him as they scoured the buildings around the square, and silently prayed that Chromia was safe with her detachment patrolling the opposite side of the death shrouded city.

* * *

><p>"A wise healer once told me it can always get worse." First Aid growled in frustration as he stood against the ever growing pressure against him.<p>

"He was right, it's worse." Lancer, the highest ranking of the guards Aid had pulled to this duty ground out beside him as he too pushed against the rushing mob. Ratchet's healing aura had finally encapsulated the hospital, all its patients and grounds. Aid had thought this would be easy, put up a healing area - cure the sick - move on. It was supposed to be easy.

Life was never easy. The moment any of the cured left the sphere their symptoms came back two fold. One, cured from near death dropped dead the moment his spark chamber left the protection of the sphere. It wasn't a plague they faced. It was a curse. An evil spell cast by dark powers that drained the life from the living and all hope from the world.

Now Ratchet slowly pushed the bounds of the circular aura, making the sphere bigger to protect more. As he pushed the sphere out, the mob of the sick and terrified healthy pushed closer threatening to trample all before them and break the tenuous hold Ratchet had on his still new abilities. Aid looked to his master, seeing the sure hands tremble and the strong frame shake.

"This is going to kill him!" Aid gasped realizing that as Ratchet pushed harder to save more, enlarging the radius from where he stood to the outermost edges of the orb foot by foot he was growing paler.

Lancer looked over his shoulder to the miraculous healer, taking in the once gray faceplates now turning white, "Do you believe in old wives tales?"

"Right now I'd believe you if you said Unicron was a femme and bond with him!" Aid replied vehemently, shoving his shoulder against the bots struggling against their ragged line, trying to reach Ratchet and the faintly shimmering promise of salvation.

"Just back me up here, alright?" Lancer turned to the crowd and bellowed, "_Silence_!" His voice resounded through the mob stilling those closest to him immediately and slowly the crowd subsided; fear still emanated from the masses but now he could hear himself think. "Iacon hear me! The rumors are true, Primus has sent down a miracle to aid us." He let the crowd roar, murmur, and let the voices fade, "But as with all things, even miracles need the aid of the faithful. We know our duty to Primus, and our debt to Him. He created _All_, and we must give of ourselves in return to bring our own survival."

Around them optics brightened with hope, all knowing the litany of the Truest Blessing. Despite the many sects that followed diverging paths to the light of Primus they all shared this one rite from times immemorial. Throughout the crowd voices rose in hymnal song, Aid singing loudest as first just a few, then more raised their voices to pray for Ratchet's continued blessing to touch them all, to save them. The voices rose bringing with them hope, and from hope a faith that was almost tangible like a warm mist on a cool day filled the air. First Aid stared, his voice stilling as he witnessed the faces of the desperate and fearful fill with a fervor that could, if harnessed, move the stars. Awed and hopeful he stepped up on a curb to once more lend his voice and guide the faithful placing his hope in the old myth that singing the Truest Blessing ensured all voices that rose to Primus' glory would be saved.

"_Seol do leanbh, a Primus, arna gcaitheamh dúinn a miracle. Déanfaimid teach é de mheon, agus é a beatha le dóchas agus ar iasacht ar ár guthanna sé amhrán. Agus nuair a daor Primus an leanbh a dhéanamh beidh muid a ardú ar ais isteach tú!"_ The chorus line grew in volume rising like a tide and with the words filling the air and vibrating to each and every mech's very core Ratchet seemed to glow brighter.

First the dawn fae seemed merely lighter, then he shimmered with light. As the crowd's voices rose together and wove into a single perfect song he shone with healing green light. The sphere grew as a bladder inflated with air that spread massively over the city like water over a ball. The sphere grew, fed by power and fueled with prayer as slowly all standing within felt the blooming of hope and renewed health filled their frames.

* * *

><p>Bluestreak moved with Ironhide, following subtle clues the twins had left leading down through the bowls of the city and deep into a warren of far too similar tunnels. "Not these again."<p>

"No whining." Wheeljack chided lightly feeling the same churning dismay. "Although I too wish these tunnels had led anywhere else but down."

Ironhide looked to his nightwalker son with mixed emotions. Five years ago 'Jack had been little more than an undying mortal with no power to speak of. Now, he could walk in the sun and materialize from wisps of mist and smoke as he had moments ago frowning darkly as he spread news of Ratchet's miracle above and the curse leaching life from the city.

"Any bets?" Bee asked almost lightly as he nodded to another set of marks the twins had left gouged into solid stone, his cryptic question sending nervous tremors along the guards' back struts.

"Nightwalkers," Cliff spoke up.

"Lycans," Bluestreak countered "Werewolves count too. The slagging beasts are like scraplets." He shuddered.

"Ghouls," Bee offered with a cringe thinking of their last encounter.

"Worse, they're necromancers." Sunstreaker spoke as he appeared in unison with Sideswipe still showing his true nightwalker self and Sunstreaker bearing the form of the lycan. "Below, three levels down. The spell they are chanting speaks of calling the dead to rise and spreading a plague among the living, turning the city into a well of despair."

"But if it makes you feel any better our old master is down there, too." Sideswipe snarled darkly, his normal humor lost to the bleak memories of long ago serving their sire and master when they had been young.

"Who's this master?" Hide demanded not liking the implications that something more powerful than day walking nightwalker-lycan hybrids lie ahead.

"We've only known him as Master, but we once heard someone call him Galvatron." Sideswipe moved forward into the darkness once more, hissing lowly as figures approached, shadowy figures slinking through the gloom.

"Hope we ain't missed the party." Jazz grinned leading a mixed team of nightwalkers and mortals through the tunnels. "Hide, long time."

"Jazz," Hide nodded, grateful to see familiar faces from the mysterious Sanctuary Wheeljack called home. "Ah'd ask 'bout the new nightwalkers, but Ah've enough ta worry 'bout." Hide shook his head shooting a pointed glare at the nightwlaker and lycan twins.

"Whatever is going on up there, its spreading through the tunnels." Prowl approached, nodding to Hide silently, "Optimus is waiting down the next corridor."

"Then let's move, we need all the help we can get." Bluestreak replied, nodding his greeting to the leaders of his old home and led the way leaving those who had known him as a terrified youngster worried as to what had transpired between his departing their village in the winter and now.

The group moved silently, now nearly twenty strong, to Optimus' position. There in an old transport chamber stood the Shadowed Prime surrounded by his twelve co-rulers and nearly every guard of Iacon, all staring as the mixed group of mortals, nightwalkers and lone lycan entered with Ironhide. As they entered all standing at the Primes' sides took aim at Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and the unfamiliar nightwalkers.

"Optimus, get them ta lower their weapons, these devils are on our side." Hide drawled, eyeing Cliffjumper warily as the mini-bot sniggered unfathomably giving the strange twins a wicked grin. The Shadowed Prime signaled his troops to lower their arms, looking askance of Hide for this new development.

Jumper walked by Sideswipe, patting him lightly on the leg, "No one targets mini-bots."

Sideswipe scowled at the jibe, absently wondering how they could win Ironhide over as their future in-law if they were already mere devils to his optics.

"Elita and Chromia have troops guarding every entrance. We must be on guard, we have seen the walking grayed moving through the tunnels, and we have no idea how they move." Optimus spoke swiftly, "We need to know what we are dealing with, and how to combat it."

"You've got necromancers raising the gray," Sideswipe stepped forward, dark violet optics gleaming challengingly in the darkness, "Kill the warlocks and you stop the curse and the undead. It's getting close enough to kill them without all of us dying that's the hard part."

"You know this how?" Hide demanded.

"Our little brother was a necromancer, but he died ten thousand vorns ago. We raised him, and showed him to others who could teach him their ways." Sideswipe replied. "Triatoma was the best of his kind long ago."

"Triatoma? _The_ Triatoma? The founder of the assassins' guild?" Prowl asked taken aback, eyeing the nightwalker with the dark twilight optics with new respect. "What do we do?"

Sunstreaker looked to Sideswipe, both startled by the honest question. No one before Ratchet had asked for their opinions or directions, and outside of their small group no one had asked them since. Now, the leader of the Sanctuary asked them what to do seeming to trust them willingly.

Sunstreaker stepped forwards, taking center stage as this was his strong suit, "This won't be easy …"

* * *

><p>Ratchet felt his optics open of their own accord, looking through the green haze he saw all of Iacon singing as one. First Aid stood at the fore of the crowd, guarding Ratchet and keeping the crowding faithful from reaching towards Ratchet's position. Suddenly, Ratchet noticed one mech, on the floor, covered with a sheet in death.<p>

The image was humbling. Despite this power that flowed through him he was unable to save everyone. Spark saddened he focused on pushing his powers further, reaching out beyond the last tenuous sickly spark until the presence of his lovers seemed near. Wherever they were they were with his brother and creator. He sensed Chromia somewhere within the city, carefully enveloped within his healing shield.

A motion near the deceased mech pulled Ratchet's attention, made his shield ripple in horror. Overhead the shield sparkled, flashing white and dark green, pulling the optics of the masses to the sky. Their song faded, and the support Ratchet had gained from the song vanished, leaving him gasping as the weight of his workings seemed to bear down on him making him tremble as he tried to hold his shields in place.

Aid turned, fearful that someone had gotten to his master then saw the death grey mech on the floor stirring as if coming to life. Yet, no color brightened the death grey frame, no words issued from his slack, lifeless lip components. The movements were jerky, uneven. Then the figure rolled stiffly onto its side pushing up on arms and knees before locking lifeless optics with Aid and lunged.

* * *

><p>Words, archaic and blasphemous rose through the darkness filling the small hidden alcove with arcane mists. In the center of the cramped space three figures circled a cold fire burning with writhing black flames. Jazz swallowed his fear tightly watching the three figures hidden in voluptuous folds of heavy cloaks. From their low pulled cowls optics each colored an eerie icy blue-white glowed vibrantly in the darkness occasionally illuminating the death grey plating of their master, a nightwalker aged past being an ancient, the oldest of the <em>vampyres<em>.

Optics dimmed, slinking forward on arms and the slow, painfully silent shifting of hips Optimus' team moved into position. One chance allowed them to attack the necromancers, one chance to stop the plague spreading above and potentially wiping the living out leaving only the risen grey to walk in their place. Finally in position, all mechs synchronized their movements by the dim, distant dripping of water, they waited five drop seconds.

_Drip … drip … drip … drip … splat …_ As one the mortals moved rushing through the dark space on silent pedes blades drawn and rushed to the still chanting-moving-dancing figures around the night black fire – and collided with each other. Screams echoed through the small space, ringing as the mortals were impaled, wounded and dying on each others' blades.

In the darkness, a sinister laugh cackled cruelly drinking in the scent of fresh mech blood. Below the long, dark laughter a more chilling sound echoed through the tunnels. Groaning, rasping and lifeless filled the darkness. Slowly, Optimus led the nightwalker units deeper into the tunnels seeking out the grays. Meanwhile the mortals regrouped some tending their wounded and seeking safety while others tied off their leaks and picked up their weapons rejoining the battle group once more.

"This was a trap," Optimus sighed looking to where Ironhide stood frowning. "You could not see through it?"

'Hide shook his head gravely, knowing he had caused the deaths of his comrades. The nightwalker twins had told him the chamber was too small, but he had not listened. Decavorns of experience hunting the dark things of the night had made Hide proud, now he fell to his false pride. The mechs were dead, their silent assault a waste of effort and before them the walking gray holding wicked weapons in lifeless hands shuffled through the darkness.

Head bowed, knowing this was their last chance 'Hide looked to the twins who glared silently at the approaching grays. "How do we – do I – fix this?"

"It can't be fixed," Sunstreaker rumbled smoothly seemingly unruffled by the walking grays approaching, "Especially not with your demise. Ratchet would never forgive us."

"We need magnesium fire. Fighting the grays is pointless. They don't stop to feed; they don't crowd around living morsels until sated and move on. They kill, period. Chop off an arm it still grasps to trip the living. Chop off a leg, it will kick and writhe. Chop off the head, it will bite. Any mortals who fall to them will rise increasing their numbers, as for us immortals?" Sideswipe shrugged unhappily, letting the image of grayed nightwalkers dead and undying at the same time fill their sparks with terror.

"Only magnesium fire will cremate them, and we need that between them and Iacon." Sunstreaker continued. The twins looked to the remaining mortals and Ironhide who could only concede that his talents were not needed here. This was a battle between the undead and the living gray, mortals would only feed one and add to the ranks of the other. Turning, 'Hide led the remaining mortals to provide the magnesium fire that would consume the grays while Optimus turned the nightwalkers from the grays seeking a route to bypass the lifeless horde and find the necromancers.


	18. Chapter 18 The End

_Listen younglings and listen well, for this is your only warning. Your creators told you the Nightwalkers had vanished, that there was nothing in the darkness that could hurt you, that you were safe in the daylight. They were wrong. Darklings beware the fae, optics bright with green new life. Youngling beware they, the creatures of darkness that withstand the day. And all beware the hunters who, bind together both the two._

* * *

><p>The crowd of desperate mechs broke off their song of hope, their voices cracking as they screamed in fear. Overhead the shield sparkled, flashing white and dark green as patches of pale sky broke through the barrier. First Aid whirled from where he stood fear pounding through his spark as he looked at Ratchet. Swallowing tightly he realized Ratchet's optics were open, staring in frozen horror at something on the floor. Optics tracking to where his master looked Aid then saw the death grey mech on the floor stirring as if coming to life. Yet, no color brightened the death grey frame, no words issued from his slack, lifeless lip components. The movements were jerky, uneven. Then the figure rolled stiffly onto its side pushing up on arms and knees before locking lifeless optics with Aid and lunged.<p>

With a scream Aid threw his small dagger, watching as it arched in slow motion to slam wetly into the gray's optic orbital – the gray never flinched. Optics widening in horror Aid backpedaled from the gray falling backwards when his pedes failed him. Terrified and knowing death was a few intakes away Aid cringed, bracing himself for the painful death that was bound to come when he was torn to shreds by the walking gray. Only to squeak when the gray's head thunked heavily onto his abdomen, the rest of the gray frame collapsing on top of him, stale energon leaking over him, soaking through his robes.

Trembling, vents hitching in fear Aid looked up to his savior, a hopeful grin spreading across his faceplates, "Blades!" He was surrounded by his brothers, Streetwise hefting him to his pedes.

"Little brother, throwing knives now." Groove grinned, "Not the safe image you've always projected."

"We have to help Ratchet!" Aid yelled, "We have to get everyone to sing again or everyone _will die_!"

"Then sing," Hot Spot nodded to Aid, pulling several of his emergency response unit to flank Aid and rekindle the song, sending faith and hope to bolster Ratchet's failing strength. Around them, in pockets of twos and clusters of more, mechs took up the song once more, lending the healer the power of their will.

Renewing the song, Aid watched over his master. The faceplates that had turned so pale slowly renewed their gray color and the rich green light returned to the shields. Nodding to himself Aid raised his voice further, entreating more to join the song of hope as his brothers corralled the living and hacked at the walking gray.

* * *

><p>Sunstreaker crouched low, his form once more that of the golden lycan. He scented the air sending confirmation to his brother that these were not more illusions. Before them, in a deep chasm below the surface stood their creator, master and father surrounded by over a dozen figures robed and cowled radiant with the necromancers' power.<p>

_::How do we fight them?:: _Optimus asked in the silent vampyre speech keeping their words between their processors and the miniscule bond all nightwalkers possessed.

_::Kill them all at once. We have over a dozen nightwalkers to take out the necromancers.::_ Sideswipe fell silent, optics dimmed t near darkness landing on the behemoth form of Galvatron.

_::What is the detriment to your proposal?::_ Prowl sent, dark door wings held high in mute worry.

_::We can't kill Galvatron.:: _Sunstreaker grumbled._ ::A childe of the nightwalker cannot attack its creator. Sides and I were fed upon once we were full grown, making us his children and his childes.::_ The nightwalkers stilled, all looking once more to Galvatron's massive frame. The necromancers around him all stood at tallest to his shoulder, their frames stick thin compared to his massive bulk. Where the necromancers were slight of build he was heavily armored, his dermal plating replaced with something thicker, resembling a super powered Ironhide.

_::Take care of the necromancers. I will handle Galvatron.::_ Optimus ordered, then flung himself over the edge of the crevasse to roar is challenge as he landed directly on top of Galvatron, sending the necromancers into a disordered fury as they all fled in different directions ripe for the picking.

Feral grins showed as Optimus descended across the remaining nightwalkers as Prowl led the charge against the necromancers. Easily ripping the still pulsing spark from the closest of the dark magicers as the rest swiftly decimated the necromancers into little more than twisted plating and ash.

"You think to defeat us so easily?" The last necromancer shrilled, clutching an energon stained hand to his chest, "You may kill us nightwalkers, but the mortals will be little more than mindless grays that will swallow all of Cybertron in darkness! The town was blanketed from out sight hours ago and now the grays have gone to other towns! They are eternal death, unending darkness that nothing can stop! You will all starve and Cybertron _will die_!"

"Sorry," Sideswipe grinned as he cornered the last necromancer, "Dawn fae trumps necromancer." With disbelief spreading across the necromancer's face Sunstreaker ripped the smaller mech's spark out through the back of his chest letting the creature fall, gray and lifeless to the ground. Face still twisted in stunned bemusement.

"Where's Optimus?" Prowl demanded over the din of weary nightwalkers and the beginning stirrings of the grayed frames becoming reanimate.

"Here, Galvatron fled when his necromancers fell. This will not be the last of his deeds." Optimus looked off into the darkness surrounding them and sighed, "The darkness of Galvatron will not be ended in but a single day."

"No, but we need that fire now!" Trailbreaker bellowed as he and others continued to hack and chop at the grayed necromancers. Severed heads snapped their jaws, shorn hands reached and clawed while every other piece removed from the grays took on the quest for destruction.

"Incomin'!" Ironhide bellowed from high above their position, dropping down sealed pellets of magnesium and water. The nightwalkers cast the pellets onto the fallen grays, then doused the writhing fragments of the grays until all was cast within the brilliant white glow of magnesium.

* * *

><p>"This – is – impossible." Blades panted as more of the grays rose from where they had fallen. Ratchet's shield kept any who suffered illness from dying, but those already grayed were taken by the curse and rose once more.<p>

"How do we stop them?" Streetwise looked from among his brothers to the writhing corpses that marked the barrier between the living and the ever growing horde of grays. Crypts filled with long dead nobles now stood with open maws, their deceased contents disgorged back upon the world. Crematoriums filled with the recent dead awaiting reclamation by the will of the Unmaker now stood empty. Every mech recently deceased and those long dead had risen, the ancient catacombs filled with eons of the dead had emptied with the power of the dark curse and now the living faced the dad overpowered five hundred to one.

"With magnesium fire, stand aside lads!" A strong femme's voice commanded harshly. Moving swiftly Streetwise, Groove and Blades fled to the right leaving a wide swath between the horde of grays and the femme. White fire rent the air, scorched the metal plating of Cybertron and cast the grays into the wind as so much ash.

"What was that?" Hot Spot demanded as he raced up to his brothers staring in impressed wonder at Iacon's new imperial guard commander, Chromia.

"My genius younglin' cooked this up a few years back. He called it a mag-blaster." She patted the strange weapon fondly, like patting a new sparked youngling and smiled proudly. "I've had a few more whipped up now take 'em and let's ash some grays!"

The standing guards roared their accord and gathered while Blades and Groove just looked askance of one another. "'Ash some grays'?" They chortled together as they grabbed mag-blasters of their own and turned the tide of battle.

With the new weapons and casks of magnesium powder and purest water the grays were decimated by mortal hands. The femme guard contingent brought down fire power rivaling that of Primus' legend and all capable carried flasks and vials from oldest femme to youngest sparklet as Iacon was cleansed of the gray plague. As the air filled with gray ash and powder, the vibrant dark green shield overhead continued to shine overhead. With the city bathed in the green light of the Dawn Fae's power none could tell if it were day or night, only that groons had passed along with too many good mechs.

Hot Spot took in a deep vent of death scented air and looked about him finally seeing the outer perimeter guards through the ranks of grays. "I can see them! Keep firing and we _will_ break through this scourge."

Their efforts renewed the guards on both sides of the undead horde sent uncounted numbers of the grays to eternal darkness. White hot fire rent the green-tinged light decimating the grays by the dozens.

* * *

><p>"Wha's the holdup? Daylight come or summut?" Ironhide drawled at the entrance to the surface as his guards and Optimus' nightwalkers limped towards home only to balk at the shimmering, swirling green light blocking the entrance.<p>

"Worse," Wheeljack panted tiredly, "Ratch's shields are up. No nightwalker can get through, Pops, unless you want us all to turn into ash."

"How the slag? This sector was evacuated, there's no way he'd be holed up in these parts." Ironhide scowled pensively worrying the implications in his processors. A shield this far out spelt one of two things. Either the grays had broken through the ranks of guards topside, or Ratchet could make one slagging huge shield.

Prowl looked to the strange twins, optics scrutinizing them before landing on Jazz. "Can a mortal get through?"

Jazz shrugged and slipped to the shield, ramming his hand into the light before any could even register what he was doing. Sideswipe gasped, Sunstreaker growled and many hid their faces in their hands to keep from seeing Jazz destroyed – only to balk at his suddenly, perfectly healed form.

"I'd take that as a yes." Jazz grinned hugely, shoving Cliffjumper into the light and through to the other side with a smirk.

"Slag you! If you're wanting to know what this does to a mech find out for yourself!" Cliff roared as he turned on Jazz glaring through the shimmering green force field.

"Great, mortals get through fine." Sideswipe huffed, "What about us?"

"Get a mortal through to Ratchet and tell him to let you through?" Bluestreak offered hesitantly, leaning up against a slick, white niter coated wall as he watched the darkness around them with haunted optics.

"No time," Sunstreaker scented the air through the barrier suddenly tensing, wolf-like frame trembling with his low rumble. "I smell mortal death."

"Duh." Wheeljack smacked his helm with the palm of his hand as he pulled the small pack from over his shoulder that had been untouched through the day's battles. "I think I can get us through." He flashed his audio fins proudly while Bluestreak fondly shook his head with a small smile. "This is an energy reflector device. Once I – or should I say a mortal that won't spontaneously combust – put this within the shield we'll have a portal through safely."

"You're trying it first, Jack." Sideswipe smiled, "Ratchet always said you were reckless, this time if you combust he can't blame it on us."

"You just want to stay on my brother's good side." Wheeljack waggled his optic ridges suggestively then handed the small, squarish device to Ironhide with an innocent flash of his audio fins at his creator.

"Ah just don't think Ah wanna know." Ironhide shook his head despairingly as he set the box within the shimmering green shield and pressed a simple switch on the side. The box opened, creating a ring of metal that allowed the shield to ripple and bend until a perfect circle broke the green expanse.

"Nightwalkers, advance." Optimus barked, leading the way as all the undead passed through the portal as the mortals simply walked through the barrier, their wounds healing instantly within the green light.

"Ah still can't wrap mah processors 'round this. Yer sure Ratch's doin' this?" Ironhide asked, looking over his once more pristine plating and relished the loss of the old aches from too many hunts that were suddenly missing from his muscle cables and servos.

"This is just a shield, Pops. You ain't seen nothing yet." Wheeljack grinned with his lighted audio fins as he turned from the barrier and headed into the city's heart that resounded with the distant strains of songs of hope and the screams of death and battle.

"What in the name o' Primus?" Ironhide breathed once they came to a rise that overlooked the main square. Ratchet stood in the middle of the square bathed in bright light, as civilians stood around him bearing magnesium and water, singing songs of prayer while bathing the approaching grays in magnesium white fire.

"Ratchet." Sideswipe and Sunstreaker breathed, looking down on their lover sheltered within a ring of mortals and chants of faith. Their optics froze on the white frame stunned at what they saw. Ratchet's frame seemed transparent, his chevron missing along with any hints of cherry red on his hands. Instead of the sleek helm and large, intimidating gray chevron there were only several sets of nearly delicate white spikes jutting out and back from his faceplates. He seemed slender, more streamlined and somehow the healer's robe looked to be of the finest silk and heavy velvet shimmering with gems encrusted in the very cloth itself.

It could have been a completely different mech, save for Aid standing diligently at his side hovering over the motionless frame. "Let's get down there. Our people need us." Optimus spoke with soft hesitancy, hoping that there would still be an Iacon to salvage. The words ripped the twins from their inspection of their lover and brought them back to reality. They looked to Wheeljack and Ironhide, frames tensing with unease when neither reacted to Ratchet's sudden change in appearance.

Without looking back the group raced to the main square, discovering the outer ring of guards blocks in from the town gates. Sentries halted them repeatedly as they approached the main force and armed escorts accompanied each of them to watch for signs of graying.

"Status report." Prowl barked out of habit, his stern command making the guards not engaged in sentry duty or fighting salute out of reflex, none caring about the violet optics he bore. These desperate times made old fears vanish and all could only focus on one species of monster at a time.

"Exterior guards show no escapes out of town. We are nearing the magic barrier's origin and the inner guards protecting its source. The grays are being decimated, but we're getting worn out." All the guards were exhausted, optics dim, some trembling with lack of energon. This close to the textile district there were no energon houses or pubs. The threat of fire was always huge and mechs had to go blocks away for rations.

"Sides," Sunstreaker looked to his brother, nodding slightly to the troops. The red nightwalker sighed expressively then pulled a strange machine from the pack across his back that never left his side.

"Fine," He pulled a lever on the arcane device, sending gears whirring and buzzing until a trickle of rich, amethyst glowing energon filled a waiting cube. "I've got rations for everyone. Someone man this thing so we can move on. Get everyone fed –" Sideswipe looked at the nearest guard, optics shining a dangerous dark violet hue, "– and _this_ gets back to me unharmed."

"Uh, uh – understood." The guard trembled looking in terror between Sideswipe and Ironhide.

"Don' fret Gearshank, these two's with mah lads." Ironhide sighed and absently smacked Sideswipe up the back side of the helm – only to freeze seconds later when he realized just _what_ he had smacked.

Sunstreaker cackled while Sideswipe glared and rubbed the back of his helm. Behind them Cliffjumper cackled at the scene, "One big happy family, yeah right." The mini-bot muttered just loud enough for the nightwalkers to hear, sending Wheeljack and Bluestreak into fits of laughter.

Together the mixed crew of nightwalkers and mortals traveled through the dangerous territory between the battle lines of guards as they headed towards the town center and Ratchet. Every corner was a death trap, each street a battlefield they had to cross swiftly and all armed with the mag-guns the femme contingent had equipped the entire city with. Optimus' nightwalkers led the group while Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's travel group guarded the rear. Surrounded by nightwalkers, Jazz, Ironhide and the other mortals kept their ammunition in reserve, swapping loaded mag-blasters for empties as the nightwalkers took down scores of the grays.

"Over there!" Bluestreak pointed with a grin towards the pillar of green light. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe grinned hugely at each other urging the rest on faster, anxious to get to their lover.

"Slow down yer engines." Ironhide barked at the pair with a dark scowl. "Ah don' know what kind o' mischief you've gotten mah younglin' inta, and Ah jus' plain don' wanna know. But, if the pair o' ya do _one_ thing ta him Ah'll know 'bout it and Ah'll come fer ya. Never doubt that."

"So does this mean we have your permission or are you just turning a blind optic?" Sideswipe asked with a cheeky grin.

"It means," Ironhide held a loaded mag-blaster under the red nightwalker's chin, blue optics boring into mischievous dark violet, "That it's up to his carrier, and she's tougher than me." The former hunter grinned darkly, "Ah'd be nice ta Chromia if Ah were you."

The twins gulped in unison, glancing at each other before noticing Cliffjumper miming a finger across his throat signaling their demise with a slag-eating grin. Sunstreaker scowled at the miniature red hellion, then smacked the larger one beside him up the back of the helm just for spite.

"Come on, we'll face down Ratchet's carrier after we make sure Ratchet hasn't overworked himself again." Sunstreaker murmured worriedly, turning from Ironhide to rejoin the group. Ironhide watched the pair move on perplexed. How could eons old monsters love? How could he entrust them with his son?

* * *

><p>Chromia panted, weary and worried, she could not remember the last time she had seen Ironhide or any of the mechs. Her femmes were worn out, low on ammo and so slagging tired they could barely stand. Here on the outskirts of the city they fought the grays and searched for survivors all hoping to regroup with their mechs soon.<p>

"Mia!" Starblaze cried, bright optics shimmering with hope, "Over there! We can see the Source." She pointed towards the central square that was finally within sight, the pillar of green rising from the ground to form the city sized shield shining brightly in the strangely hued light.

"Thank Primus. Alright femmes, we can see the main square, everyone stay sharp! The last thing we need is to get distracted and dead." Chromia barked into the battle din, reloading once more and joining the fray. Her troops marched on, breaking down the area into quadrants, sending flames to consume the few remaining grays in their district.

"I see them! Over here, Chromia, Starblaze!" The femmes finally saw them, the front line of the inner guard mopping up the last of the grays between the inner and outer lines.

"Thank Primus. Gearshift, Drift!" Firestar called with a grin as the femmes tightened ranks, refusing to let their guard down this close to home. They crossed the last half block, their battle line nearly a quarter of the city long closing the inner and outer lines and securing a fraction of the city from the plague of grays.

"Welcome back, I've got a surprise for your ladies." Gearshift smiled, holding up a cube of energon enticingly to the femme commander. "Get them inside and rationed. Then you're to move towards city center. We've got things here, especially with you ladies having cleared the district." The gray-green mech nodded his thanks, sending fresh mechs to take over the front lines while sending the weary back in to rest.

"Get your girls in to rest. You can head out after three groons rest, that's all the time we can spare for you." Gearshift smiled on the closest femmes, grateful their numbers had not been overly decimated. Still, the haunted echoes in their optics spoke volumes to how desperate their battles had become.

"Affirmative, you heard the mech, step to!" Chromia barked and slapped Gearshift on the shoulder as she passed letting him know her thanks through the simple gesture.

* * *

><p>"Ironhide!" A familiar voice echoed across the courtyard, joy and despair ringing in the femme's tones. The call made Ironhide spin on his heel, optics bright as he looked upon his femme with hope and exuberant joy.<p>

"Chromia!" He bellowed racing to embrace the slender blue femme running towards him and lifting her high before crushing her close to his chest sharing a deep, lingering kiss. "Yer alive an' prettier than ever, darlin'."

"You're incorrigible ya old flatterer." She smiled, caressing his face gently as she pressed their helms close.

"You two are corrupting your innocent younglin', Ma." Wheeljack spoke up with a slag-eating grin lighting his voice, audio fins flashing merrily as Chromia, startled out of her reunion smiled warmly and threw herself at Wheeljack.

"My youngling!" She squealed, hugging Wheeljack with crushing force he only just felt. "When did you get back? – And why are we _crawling_ with nightwalkers?" She asked darkly staring at Optimus, Prowl, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe with dark, furious optics. Despite her harsh tone a trickle of fear for the mortals of Sanctuary ran down her spinal struts.

"Careful femme," Sunstreaker growled darkly.

"Or what?" Chromia asked with deceptive calm, hands tightening on her weapons as she locked bright blue optics with two sets of dark twilight.

"Small wonder where Ratch gets his violent streak." Sideswipe grinned at his brother then frowned at the piercing stare Chromia gave him. The femme seemed terrifying despite being half their mass and only marginally armed.

"Ratch? How do you know my youngling?" Chromia demanded icily, her optics narrowing to mere slits as she stalked towards the suddenly cowering nightwalker pair, "Tell. Me."

"Love, they're the ones that saved Healer's Wrath from the nightwalkers." Ironhide began, only to shut his mought as his mate turned on him, optics slitted dangerously as the pieces beganto fall into place.

"Then they're the ones that -!"

"Yeah, they bit our lad, but he's Dawn Fae, immune and safe. It's been months and he ain't turned yet. They've guarded him evah since, 'Mia." Ironhide held his femme's shoulder gently, conveying with touch his sincerity.

"Wait, Ratchet's here?" Chromia turned on her mate, optics bright with fury. Her optics tracked Ironhide's pointing finger looking to the green, glowing pillar of light and the location of her son. "Y – you mean, he – he's the Source?"

"Yes," Sunstreaker spoke, "And he's been putting out high energy for groons, maybe orns. We have to get to him, or he might terminate from exhaustion."

"Ratchet," Chromia gasped and raced towards the green pillar and her youngling, hoping to get there as the others followed her before Ratchet's spark expired.

* * *

><p>"Alright, you're finished. Thank you." Aid grasped the mech's hand in thanks after he sealed of the energon line and ceased the transfusion.<p>

The other smiled, "It was my pleasure, I'm just glad you thought of using energon transfusions to keep the master healer alive and well. He had us worried there for a while."

Aid sighed, looking up to Ratchet's worn and exhausted features. They had been here for three orns, although it felt like eons since they had looked down on the city from the snow covered hill after the afternoon of snowball fights. The memory made him smile for an instant, before his face fell in grief.

… _the gray's head thunked heavily onto his abdomen, the rest of the gray frame collapsing on top of him, stale energon leaking over him, soaking through his robes. Aid looked to his brothers, pulling on fresh robes after being once more rescued from being crushed by the dead weight. His joy at being reunited lasted only moments until the severed helm began to bite, the headless frame rising to pummel the living into gray piles of slag that would rise eventually…_

So many had died, so many had risen to kill more; one gray had caused the deaths of over a hundred. Now, the square was secured, open and clear with mechs rotating out of secured street level shops and houses in short shifts guarding the square on street level, underground and from the roofs. Patrols searched the city beyond the secure front, hunting grays down in every nook and hovel. The grays continued to trickle in appearing at odd intervals, and still Cliffjumper and the others remained unaccounted for.

Aid looked around, grateful to be alone for a moment. Finally, terrified, tired, missing his brothers and master despite standing right beside him. Aid had never felt so isolated. He crouched, arms over helm and keened his grief and terror from days of battle and destruction with no end in sight. Life was so dark that termination almost seemed like a blessing, to no longer feel this desolate anguish. But, death was worse than living, now. Now, if he terminated he would take others with him and lead a fresh horde of the gray.

"If someone's hurt ya I'll rip 'em apart." Aid flinched and looped up at Cliffjumper, optics wide and desperate.

"Cliff," Aid rasped, falling forward to his knees and burying his face in his smaller lover's chest, arms holding the red frame desperately close. "Don't leave me."

"I ain't going anywhere, Primus couldn't drag me." A red hand sheltered the white helm gently, holding Aid close as he murmured sweet nothings to the weary healer until the white form fell asleep curled against Cliff's chest knowing he was finally safe.

Sideswipe snickered as he looked on the pair, earning himself a glower from the thoroughly pinned Cliffjumper. "How cute, the mini-bot and sleeping beauty – hey!"

"What are you calling my little brother?" Sideswipe gaped staring into the face of a mech nearly as tall as Galvatron, easily as big as Optimus himself.

"Uh, Cliffjumper is your brother?" Sideswipe looked between the behemoth and the mini-bot in surprise.

"No, you moron, First Aid!" Another mech small and slender barked furiously.

"Oh, well, then he's alright. Cliffjumper is another story altogether." Sideswipe smiled winningly.

"Keep talkin' and I'll rip ya apart ya cold sparked monster." Cliffjumper roared from the ground.

"How sweet," Sunstreaker murmured with a dark grin promising pain, "After all this time he still thinks you have a spark."

"You'd think he'd learn," Sideswipe grinned, easily slipping from the larger mech's grasp with a conniving grin and optics darkened to nearly black gleaming a venomously dark purple. "We never had one."

The brothers shared a dark grin before looking to Ratchet moving close and taking in the creased brow knitted in exhausted concentration. "How can he still be online?" Sideswipe looked the white figure over carefully before noting the single sleeve rolled up over his elbow, a fresh bandage covering the transfusion port all mechs possessed in the crease of their elbow.

"Sirs, the healer has been performing energon transfers every few hours. It started two orns ago, Master Healer nearly collapsed from exhaustion." A mech in worker's overalls approached, clutching his elbow crease spoke tiredly. "I just finished my transfusion a breem ago. He'll be fine for a time."

"Good," Sideswipe sighed, "I hope we finish this soon." He looked out over the city tiredly. They all were tired, ready to find peace after so many months of travel and fighting. So many immortals in one group and still they had been worn past the limits of exhaustion just to get this far.

"We need ta reign this shield o' his in, shrink it till he can function properly again. This ain't healthy fer the lad." Ironhide looked his son over with concern, still wary of the vampyers standing protective guard over him. "Dear Primus, lad, even his chevron's lookin' pale."

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe shared a confused glance then looked to Ratchet once more. He still held his strange appearance, the chevron entirely missing and now, up close they could make out the bulges in the back of his robes where wings remained folded securely.

_:: What the slag?::_

_::He's burning off his guise.:: _Sideswipe breathed, suddenly realizing why the mortals saw one thing, while they saw another. If they did not stop his work soon, Ratchet would be forever exposed as a fey.

"There may be a way to let him quit this." Wheeljack spoke finally, fingers holding his chin in thought. "There are crystals that can absorb energy then reproduce it when excited with the right spectrum of light. If I can whip one up with the right device to hold it we can replicate the shield over Ratchet's then snap him out of this."

Chromia shared a worried glance with Ironhide before looking to Wheeljack, placing a calm hand on her son's shoulder, "It might replicate the light, and maybe the color but, Jackie, how can it hold back the curse?"

"The necromancers are dead, so the curse's origin is gone. Until a mech passes away and stays dead we have to assume the curse passes from murderer to victim, spreading like a touch-plague." Wheeljack replied calmly, optics still studying his brother who was looking frail and almost translucent in the dim green light, a strange double image forming of Ratchet somehow different in each layer. The image hurt Wheeljack's optics but still he studied the frame of his brother wondering if there was something else at work here.

"Alright, lad, what do ya need?" Ironhide asked, summoning more guards to watch over the pinned Cliffjumper, First Aid and Ratchet. As guards stood at attention around the healers Wheeljack and several alchemists worked to create a way to save Ratchet from rusting where he stood. Wheeljack's only purpose was to save his big brother, to keep his family whole in the face of all the darkness around them. Desperate for an answer he swore to find a solution, even if it killed him.

* * *

><p>"Ugh, how can they keep doing this?" Bumblebee asked several groons later as the shield overhead brightened with the dawning of the fourth orn. "Wheeljack has worked for groons and Ratchet's <em>still<em> standing. I'm exhausted and I've slept for six groons."

"You mean you overslept," Cliffjumper groused, still upset and mortified that he had been pinned beneath First Aid for ten groons solid then grilled by the healer's big brothers until just moments ago. He looked over his shoulder warily at the clustered brothers five he found himself embroiled with.

"So how's the family?" Bee asked with a huge slag-eating grin, winking roguishly at his friend.

"Shut up. It's bad enough having a lover twice my size, but now I'm suddenly the _littlest_ brother and _doted_ on by the behemoth." He grumbled petulantly as Hot Spot and the others waved exuberantly at him, all smiling hugely as they hugged First Aid close. The poor kid had been clung to since he woke up, _none_ of his brothers letting him out of their sight for an astrosecond.

"At least, now, you have a family." Bee replied gently, "We never had that in the dorms of the assassins guild. Just be happy they accepted you, they could have forced you to leave Aid."

"I know," Jumper smirked, "They just asked me at the end if I thought Aid was happy."

"Then it must be good enough. Come on, they need fresh bodies on the patrol line."

"Sure, beats sitting around here all day." Cliff admitted as they grabbed blasters and headed toward the distant front line. Bee smiled wistfully as his friend waved to Aid, turning without worry knowing that the healer was in good hands.

* * *

><p>Birdsong filled his audios, the air scented with the chilled first breath of spring. Deep intakes chilled his frame, making him ache in ways he never knew were possible. Optics, aching and tired slowly creaked online taking in the dim room with a green tinted sky beyond.<p>

"Green?" His voice rasped befuddled as sluggish processors painfully attempted to reboot, he could have sworn the sky had once been blue.

"Hey, lover," Sideswipe smiled over Ratchet looking down on the still pale and worn features of the white healer, the dark chevron seeming darker from the weariness dimming the still pale green optics. Sideswipe grinned wider, focusing his optics just a little differently he could still make out Ratchet's true features beneath the guise.

"Lover … Sideswipe?" Ratchet finally smiled, optics brightening as memory caught up. "Why is the sky green?"

"Jack remade your powers in a gem." Sunstreaker appeared beside his brother, dark optics shining with relieved affection to see their lover once more awake. "You were in a shield trance for nearly five days. Aid gave transfusions along the way, but you've weakened."

A warm hand caressed Ratchet's face gently, he couldn't tell who's hand was tracing his cheek plating, or who's thumb tenderly traced his lower lip. The hands on his plating felt so real, they grounded him making his pain and weariness more real while making his spark glad that they were there.

"What happened?" Ratchet rasped finally, bleary optics looking up to his lovers until they climbed beside him. Strong arms held him close, surrounding him in comforting warmth as they gently recounted the last few orns. They told their tale in fits and spurts, letting Ratchet sleep when he could. The day passed lazily letting the three catch up on the many orns spent apart until Ratchet finally could move himself easily.

"A lot of folks are waiting to see you," Sideswipe spoke when dawn returned once more, the distant sky beyond the shield dark with just a faint stripe of light rising below. The red vampyre stirred, stretching languidly despite spending a full orn in a berth curled up with his lover. Ratchet only held out his hand, letting his more rested lovers pull him from the berth when his frame refused to respond.

"Come on, love," Sunstreaker smiled happily puling Ratchet to him. "Your creator has been threatening us with a rough sanding and throwing us beyond the barrier to roast. You wouldn't want me to ruin my perfect plating do you?"

Ratchet smiled wistfully, "No, I wouldn't." He looked his lovers over critically taking in the tiny imperfections in their finish. "Why the slag haven't you two been taking care of yourselves?" Ratchet suddenly roared, his optics flashing in fury as he took in tiny wounds that littered his lovers frames. With a rough snort he grabbed his satchel from the corner it had rested in while he recovered and turned to making his lovers' frames shine in perfection.

"Come on, Ratch!" Sideswipe whined three groons later when their lover finally stored the last of his healing supplies. Sunstreaker slipped on a rich blue shirt with slow sensuality, optics tracking Ratchet, noting how his lover slowed becoming distracted with his show and smirked as Sideswipe repeated the process slipping on a deep bloody hued shirt that matched his plating. By now Ratchet was nearly drooling watching them only to snap out of his reverie when he remembered his creators were waiting for him beyond their comfortable quarters.

"You're right Sides, let's go." Ratch smiled at them knowingly as he turned away from the pair heading out towards the rest of the inn they were in this time and the creators he had not seen since deep in winter.

The twins grinned at each other, each moving to Ratchet's side and clinging to one hand each. They traveled down the corridor from their quarters to the main room, finding Ratchet's and First Aid's families sitting together sipping early rations of energon.

Ratchet sighed, "This can't be good." He squeezed his lovers hands gently then moved forward finally setting sights on his creators. The room stilled as he entered, all looking at him before they broke into applause. Nervous, uncertain and bewildered Ratchet silently waved at the others before moving to the table with his family, silently noting with distaste how only one chair waited for him.

Wheeljack waved at him cheekily, audio fins flashing a cheeky green as he glanced at their creators as if sharing some deep secret. Ratchet moved to his chair, hands resting silently ontop of the high back as he looked pointedly to Bluestreak sitting silently beside Bumblebee at a small table across the dining room. "So, one happy family?"

"Yup," Wheeljack laughed merrily, "At least until we convince our _loving_ creators that our intended lovers haven't brainwashed us into accepting them. Then, it's their turn." Wheeljack sighed, "Blue's terrified."

"Small wonder," Ratchet pulled out his chair and finally sat down, "_I'm_ terrifying to him."

"I wonder why," Chromia smiled fondly, "I'd like to think we raised the pair of you well." She looked Ratchet over intently, her faint smile spreading wider as she looked at her son. "I am so proud of you."

"Chromia," Ratchet huffed, neck plates prickling in embarrassment at her doting words. "I just did what I could." He looked to his hands, seeing the blood of the dead and that of their victims, "Its not like I saved anyone."

"Now, none o' that, lad." Ironhide rumbled, "Ya saved plenty, just 'bout everyone still livin'. Yer shields kept the sick from terminiatin', cured most o' them and kept the wounded alive just that much longer. You did the hardest of the work. We just did the dirty kind."

Ratchet nodded, letting his creators believe what they wanted. They had not seen the gray alive and well, they had not healed the mech to full health only to watch him crumple and die. They had not seen every instant of the fight through the all seeing optics of the shield, and been unable to do anything. He had seen his lovers trying to get through, seen Wheeljack save them when he could not even shift one tiny opening in the solid light lest he open the shields to everything.

"Ratchet," Chromia pulled him from his thoughts and placed a cube of lightly tinted blue energon in his hand, "Those nightwalkers haven't touched you have they?"

"Not in any way I didn't want them to." Ratchet replied as Wheeljack spluttered and Ironhide cursed. Chromia gaped at him, face plating heating before suddenly glaring icily.

"And that means what, precisely?"

Ratchet huffed, "Did you tumble 'Hide before you bonded?"

"Ratchet!" Chromia scolded, optics bright while Jack guffawed with his head on the table hidden within his folded arms.

"Tha's none o' yer business." Hide rumbled darkly, tone hued with mortification.

"And my _business_ is none of yours." Ratchet replied flatly, then sighed. "I am with both of them, and I haven't a clue what they see in me. I love the hellions, probably more than I should. They keep me from overworking myself, pull me from my duties to recharge and refuel. If it hadn't been for them Aid and I would have died out there this winter."

"Ratchet," Chromia sighed. "I'm just worried. They're _vampyre-hybrids_, ancient by all accounts and the childes of the Beast. You may be immune, but they could have slave-bound you."

"I know, carrier." Ratchet sighed, "But they didn't." He paused before looking up to meet her optics flatly, "They can't kill me, Chromia. _They_ are bound to me. The curse upon them by Alpha Trion binds them to me, if I die, so do they and if I grow weary of them, they die anyway."

Chromia swallowed nervously while Ironhide downed a fresh cube in a single gulp. Coming from anyone else the news would have been terrifying, but from Ratchet it just made their sparks ache. Ratchet would never willingly cause the death of another if it could be helped.

Chromia fidgeted silently then patted Ratchet's hand fondly, "I was hoping you'd tell us how you're doing now." The brothers looked to one another and sighed.

"Fine, I'm fine. Tired, and I feel hollow somehow, but when I'm with them I don't notice it as much. I think it's mostly because they keep forcing me to take small rations like clockwork, and bug the slag out of me when I get too quiet." Ratchet looked around the room, feeling his lovers optics on him but they were nowhere in sight. He smiled, knowing they were invisible, and probably right beside him. "They hover," Ratchet looked to a corner, noting the slight haze and smiled, "Even when I am perfectly safe. I don't want to face a world without them, and they refuse to stay in an empty world without me."

"Yer serious." Ironhide sighed exasperatedly, fingers pressing wearily against his optics. "Primus be, lad, they're –"

"_Don't_ call them monsters." Ratchet glared firmly. "They're nightwlakers, just like 'Jack. They were born, just like you two. Unlike me they know where they came from and what they are. The only monster here is me. I'm some unknown creature that you happened to raise, using a name another fey gave me claiming to know what I am!"

"Ah was gonna say incorrigible, ruthless, crude idiots with a taste fer violence. When are ya gonna get it through yer thick helm that you an' yer brother bein' what ya are don't make one whit o' difference to us. An' after this pit spawned fiasco we've been through no one else does either. Now tell those heathens ta quit skulking in that corner over there an' come join us."

"But, what about Jack?" Ratchet squawked looking with youngling-like betrayal between his brother and creators. Ratchet had been grilled this entire time and 'Jack is just accepted? It was _not_ fair.

"He spilled yesterday." Chromia deadpanned. "Bluestreak babbled for hours after that."

"You never told me that!" Wheeljack wailed, looking to his lover with frustration only to find Blue standing at his elbow smiling apologetically.

"We're family now, but we haven't been able to get close to your lovers. They always vanish before we can talk to them." Chromia growled frustratedly.

"Ratchet has family, something we were always short on." Sideswipe suddenly materialized, sitting in a seat on Ratchet's left. "We couldn't ask him to give you up just for us."

"But don't think we would have given up on him." Sunstreaker murmured, appearing on Ratchet's right, golden hand entwined with cherry red. "If you had made him choose, we would have _intervened_." The dark promise that they would never have left Ratchet's side soothed Chromia's spark only slightly, but the smile Ratchet bore told her, even if things did not stay perfect, that they were happy.

"Well," Chromia grinned hugely, "When's the bonding ceremony? Oh, and since both of you were sparked, I want grand-sparks, lots of them. I don't care what talents they have, or when they come. I think six would be just perfect."

"Alright, now you're scaring me." Ratchet breathed, looking with fear between his creators, while trying not to laugh at his pole axed lovers. "Just how are three mechs supposed to produce sparklings anyhow?"

"Oh, you know, tab A, slot B and with a few modifications, one of you can carry. It's not that hard, my creators were both femmes." Chromia smiled fondly, "Just make sure my younglin' stays well and happy and if he ever cries because of you I'll be coming after you." Sideswipe and Sunstreaker gulped in fear at the femme's soft, endearing voice paired with her lethally slitted optics and ferocious snarl. Still, the thought of a miniature golden Ratchet with Sideswipe's taste for pranks filled Sunstreaker's processors and the image made his spark swell. Maybe they could, one day, have childes of their own.

* * *

><p>"So, what now?" Bee asked in the town square as he looked up to the pristine blue sky. Mechs had finally returned to staying dead when they terminated, and with that return to normalcy so did the sky as Wheeljack's machine was powered down for the first time in half a season.<p>

Cliffjumper sat nearby at First Aid's side sharpening several bolts on a whetstone while the healer fidgeted with his new Masters robes. Jack and Blue stood together a short distance away, Jack puzzling over a new contraption he had come up with. Blue whittled a small wooden figurine, wood dust and shavings coating his clothes in their white powder. Ratchet knelt by his healing kit refilling and replacing serums and vials while Sideswipe tinkered with his energon machine and Sunstreaker, shirt off, polished his armor in a free show that had most passerby's drooling. The three lovers' seemed to act more and more like they had never met, or couldn't stand each other. Wheeljack was betting that they were forcing the facade to keep Chromia from harping about grand-sparks again.

"What do you mean?" Ratchet asked finally, "My teaching assignment begins next week. Sides' is opening his brewery, Sunstreaker his art stand." He lifted a vial towards the sun, checking its contents for clairity, "We'll send Jack and Blue off back to Sanctuary with Jazz and Prowl tomorrow. First Aid has his first rotation in the hospital next week."

"Us," Bee glanced around the others, finger circling to include them all, "Will we become little more that a memory, 'that one winter long ago'?"

"No, Bee," Wheeljack retracted his face mask and grinned his bright gap-toothed smile. "We'll stay close, just _later_ it will be hard."

"Cause we're mortal, and you lot don't age." Cliffjumper smiled and sighed, "Don't worry about it. Think of a mortal as a soldier, we'll be cut down eventually, it's just a matter of when, not if. One day we'll be gone, and you'll still be here, but just as long as we don't to get ourselves killed it'll be quite a while before that happens."

"Besides, we have too much to do." First Aid looked to his mentor – now, equal – "Cliff, my brothers and I are going to set up an emergency tower north of the Sanctuary. Streetwise already came up with the name Grayling, the town where every being in seen is shades of gray. We'll be able to respond to the needs of the villages faster, and when Galvatron rears his ugly helm again Iacon will know."

"And what about you?" Sideswipe grinned at Bee, "You keep asking what we're going to do."

"I – I don't know," Bee sighed, "Cliffjumper's the closest thing to family I've got."

"So come with us, I'm sure we can find a nice, small little femme just your style." Cliff grinned and waggled his optic ridges as Bee flushed.

"Then its settled, we meet up whenever we can, right now I just want to live." Sideswipe smiled on Ratchet happy to finally know peace. The group worked in contented silence, ignoring the city around them. Their small sanctuary of contented silence created a haven from those watching them with ever spreading whispers of the saviors of Iacon, and the bringer of Primus' light. Today the group rested, and tomorrow would begin the rest of their lives.

The End


	19. Epilogue

**A/N: **This is for _mature readers only_! Contains explicit descriptions of sticky! smex. You have been warned.

* * *

><p><em>Listen younglings and listen well for this is the end of my story. Beware the nightwalker that in the light refuse to bow to Primus' might. Beware the fey that can make the broken whole, for what was mended and redone the broken whole, the two halves made one can be rebroken the healing undone. But of them all beware the most, the love of those not mortal. For when they are faced with eternity they will long outlast the kingdoms known as unshakable to you and me.<em>

* * *

><p>Ratchet sighed, weary and frustrated as he signed off on the last of the repairs to the construction crew. Thirty mechs had been terminated in the catacombs when the underground passage collapsed. Fifty others were horribly damaged. The timing sucked, coming at the end of his first week back in rotation at the collegium as a teacher and working evenings in the medical ward. The days were long, he was always on call, but all the healers here pooled together to ensure that no single healer was unduly over worked.<p>

Except, he was the only healer in residence with the ability to heal darklings; that was the first thing he would work on after his break. He had earned two whole - friggin' joy - days reprieve from the medical ward after being stuck healing the worst of the mortal injuries only his fey gifts could touch and the darklings who had integrated themselves within the city.

He turned down the hall, seeking his too-small, too hard, cot in the dorm. The halls were silent, echoing his steps as he wearily moved with a slow tread. Only, the dorms were crowded this night where usually only Master Healers were quartered here, students and journeymen scurried with fearful expressions until Ratchet appeared. Then they froze, optics wide with terror.

"It wasn't us! We swear, Grand Master." Several students and journeymen pleaded unexpectedly forcing Ratchet to stop uncertainly in the hall.

"What, 'wasn't you'?" Ratchet asked wearily, pushing past the crowd to his room only to find the door open widely and his small room empty and sterile. "The _slag_?" He stepped in warily as if expecting the emptiness to reveal a creature of nightmare and darkness to attack. Instinctively he slipped steaks now strapped to his forearms under his tunic into his hands gripping them tightly as he imbued them with barely visible green healing light. Instead, the emptiness remained. Shelves set into the wall were empty and polished. A small armoire on the wall hung open, the many small trinkets and baubles collected on his rotations in the field missing with not even dust left behind.

Fury mounting Ratchet moved to turn on those behind him when a shimmer of light flickered from the window sill. There, sitting innocuously on the pristine sill sat a perfect rose encased in glass. Only, it was impossible that this thing of beauty could ever have been alive. The stem shimmered, sparkling silver from its golden depths. The delicate stem lead to three perfect leaves, topped by a blood red bud that shimmered with flecks of obsidian. Barely open, the bud held in its dark crimson center a perfect opal of shimmering white hued with flecks of lightest green that seemed to glimmer from endless depths.

Ratchet swallowed tightly, throat and intakes frozen in awe of this epitome of beauty. He absently slipped the steaks back up into their holders and held the rectangular case in careful fingers, unable to set it down and simultaneously terrified of dropping the exquisite creation. He settled himself back against the windowsill staring enraptured at the rose, spark trembling at its magnificent artistry.

"Whoa, Grand Master Ratchet was _given_ a gelled rose." One of the students breathed in awe, breaking the spell about Ratchet. Cycling his optics, Ratchet looked up with a sigh.

"What did you call this thing?" He asked with his usual grouse, affirming to all that the Grand Master held no spark.

"Sir, gels are super-condensed, mineral enriched energon poured into molds and made solid. I've never seen one that big before though." The collegium's principal looked Ratchet over, noting the healer's withdrawn expression. "It was _them_, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Ratchet pulled a soft cloth from the satchel across his shoulder and wrapped the delicate case with gentle hands. "I'm off to slag a couple of idiots." Ratchet rose from the window sill and stalked with lethal intent towards the main entrance and the city beyond.

"Should we prep the ward, sir?" A student asked their principal, earning dark snickers from the other master healers.

"No, Ratchet will not do irreparable harm to his intended targets. Go to your dorms." The principal nodded towards the back door leading to the student dorms, leaving the hall silent and everyone realized their Masters' dorm would never be the same with Ratchet permanently gone.

* * *

><p>Ratchet strode down the main thoroughfare from the collegium to the shops his lovers had opened three blocks away. The awe of the rose left in his emptied out dorm room had already mostly faded, leaving behind his strut deep exhaustion, and aching weariness. There was no question of who left the rose. The colors of the gel screamed their identity.<p>

Still, despite their token of devotion he was going to slag them. He was tired, Pit take it all. He had expected to make the trek to see them in the morning, not drag his dirty, worn out chassis through the city just this side of midnight. He sighed tiredly, stumbling over his peds and found his lovers standing in the darkness, in brooding silence that made all others keep their distance. "What are you two doing here?"

Ratchet gulped as his voice rasped from exhaustion, mentally cringing as two sets of blue optics locked onto him. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, once more clad in their guise of youthful mortals, stalked to Ratchet, optics devouring him as they approached. Ratchet tensed, drawing inwards with each flicker of Sunstreaker's optics as the vain nightwalker noticed dulled plating, stained robes, scratched hands and optics dim from too much work.

"Let's go home," Sideswipe smiled once he stood before Ratchet, his light manner throwing the healer off as Ratchet expected a tirade for not taking better care of himself. Forgotten was his ire at them when faced with their combined intensity. His lovers each claimed one of his hands, Sideswipe gently stealing the heavy healer's tote from his shoulder and entwined their fingers, thumb gently tracing several new deep scratches along the back of Ratchet's hand.

"Home?" Ratchet asked bewildered looking first to Sunstreaker then Sideswipe and wondering what had happened since he last stepped outside of the collegium nearly a week prior. "In case you two forgot we don't have one. The inn kicked us out when my creators returned to the palace. Hide and Chromia don't have space for us, and your stores only have the one back room which has barely enough room for your cots."

Sunstreaker finally smiled a faint, mysterious smile down on Ratchet, "Not anymore."

"Not anymore what?" Ratchet demanded, stumbling over his own pedes once more as weariness and confusion conspired to force him into recharge safely ensconced between his lovers despite being in the middle of the street.

Sunstreaker only smiled. Then they turned the corner and Ratchet could only gasp. The blank store fronts that had marked Sunstreaker's art gallery and Sideswipe's energon brewery were gone. Now Sunstreaker's store was fronted with magnificent works of art, most of them by other mechs. Inside racks of art supplies and canvases filled the front of the store, and in the back an old femme taught younglings to paint.

"Art lessons?" Ratchet asked, surprised and touched that Sunstreaker, vain creature that he was, would allow younglings in his store at all. "This late?"

"Willow Moon produces most of the supplies I sell. If I want a good price, she gets to teach. It keeps the younglings from messing up my store." Sunstreaker grinned hugely, waving at several of the students who pointed and waved as if he were a celebrity. Ratchet mentally huffed, noticing a few breathtaking paintings near the younglings that were Sunstreaker's works, perhaps he was.

"Their creators work nights, so they take on their creators' schedules. No one wants to be left asleep in a dark home since the grays." Sideswipe murmured, "They've even made night schools and night-time day care."

Ratchet leaned his helm against Sunstreaker's shoulder for a moment, allowing his processors to take in Sunstreaker's smile and his obvious fondness of the younglings despite the circumstances that placed the younglings in that store this late. Part of Ratchet's spark hoped that one orn it would be their child painting in that room, learning its creator's trade.

"My store's way better." Sideswipe grinned, nudging Ratchet excitedly – much like a youngling – before pulling him and in turn Sunstreaker through their tangled hands to the opposite side of the block. There Sideswipe's brewery sat with doors open while light, laughter and music spilled out. Mechs and femmes of all ages crammed the many chairs and bar stools along the main floor. In one corner minstrels played a lively reel as others danced. Servers brought cubes and plates of goodies to the diners, flirted shamelessly and ensured everyone had a full cube and a smile.

In the back workers dressed in vibrant orange smocks mixed ingredients for goodies or poured energon from massive barrels. Behind the hustle of the pub and serving area the brewery stretched on filling the massive building's ground level. Tanks hummed, massive paddles mixed, steam driven gears turned and drove pistons to churn raw ingredients into a simmering froth. Sheer glass columns rose to the ceiling channeling energon in various rainbow hues to their respective bottling lines where scores of workers stood in an assembly line filling kegs, casks, growlers and storage cubes then prepared them for transport.

Behind the center of the serving counter, holding a place of prominence stood a glass display case holding highly detailed molded gels. Ratchet looked to the case through the hustle of the pub, noting that despite the beauty of the gel creations, none came close to rivaling the beauty of the rose in his satchel.

"How did you get all this done in a week?" Ratchet asked in amazement. His trip here just before he took on his teaching duties had shown a massive, empty, disgustingly filthy warehouse. Scraplets had infested the walls, strange residues coated the floors and despite the building having four floors, no doors nor stairs leading up could be found.

"_Nightwalker_." Sideswipe singsonged and grinned hugely, showing off the perfectly straight denta his mortal guise possessed. "We don't need to sleep, but if you're around I won't complain." He waggled optic ridges at Ratchet, pulling the healer in tight against him for a deep kiss, earning a chorus of cheers and cat calls from the many servers and patrons of his brewery.

"Sideswipe!" Ratchet hissed embarrassedly as he buried his face in the red twin's chest. "I will be laughed out of the healing ward!"

"I doubt that." Sunstreaker purred, pulling Ratchet with infinite care from Sideswipe's embrace into a light kiss. The mechs of the pub 'ooh'ed' and cackled. "They all wish they had you, the lone mech who stole both our sparks."

"Humph," Ratchet smirked back happily, despite his embarrassment, "there was only ever one spark to steal. I just had to gain both halves."

"True, but they don't know that." Sideswipe leered openly at Ratchet, Sunstreaker wearing an identical expression that was all the more lascivious for his hungered gaze.

Ratchet swallowed tightly, interface array heating excitedly for the public attention he was being bestowed by his lovers. "I think I want to go home now." He murmured huskily, absently licking his lips in anticipation. The twins grinned hungrily, and towed him past the brewery and its cajoling mechs to the back of the block that held only their stores, and opened a door that seemed to appear out of nowhere along the back wall just before the rear alley.

"Do you trust us?" Sunstreaker asked softly just inside the door that immediately led up a flight of stairs.

"Yes," Ratchet confirmed immediately then paused, glaring at them suspiciously, "Why?"

Sideswipe reached over Ratchet's shoulder, dangling a strip of dark cloth, "It's a surprise. Lights out." He cajoled the last as he placed the strip over Ratchet's optics with infinite care, and tied the cloth securely behind Ratchet's helm.

Sunstreaker smiled indolently as he led Ratchet by the hands, Sideswipe just behind their lover, gently guiding the strong shoulders up the narrow stairs. Sunstreaker glanced at his twin, optics gleaming excitedly. They had waited for this day since their stores had opened and they stumbled upon the hidden staircase leading up to abandoned apartments that filled the top three floors of the block. Anxious, they led Ratchet blindfolded up three flights of stairs, into the waiting space and paused.

"Now can I look?" Ratchet asked gruff voice unable to mask his excitement, exhaustion and trepidation. His swallowed a gasp as his lovers' hands caressed along his frame, tracing along the thin sleeves of his lighter spring healers robes, igniting the desire for them that never seemed to fade.

"Now," Sunstreaker breathed huskily against Ratchet's audio, gently unveiling Ratchet's optics to reveal the new space to the healer. "Do you like it?"

Ratchet stared in awe at the massive, cozy home spread before him. He stood in the entry hall, and spotted a family sitting area in front of a hearth to one side with a hall stretching back towards the far rear of the building. To the other side of the entry spread a massive kitchen complete with dual energon stills, the glass columns showed one brew of magenta and another of mech-blood alternative blue, while a stone hearth for baking goodies sat along the back wall. Another hall led off from the kitchen leading to several rooms that stood open, doors wide. Ratchet moved to the hall off of the family room, glancing into each open door and increasingly overjoyed at what he saw. The first one held a wide berth flanked by weapons racks, the one opposite it held another wide berth flanked by work tables.

Ratchet felt his spark constrict and melt simultaneously. His lovers had made a home for them, with room for Hide, Chromia, Jack and Bluestreak to stay with them when needed. That generosity, that warmth of spark they never showed demonstrably in public radiated with these extravagant gestures. Ratchet moved on once he knew his love-weakened knees wouldn't collapse under him, and moved on to the other rooms that continued down the hall, most set up as empty rooms to be moved into as needed.

He turned spotting his lovers leaning against the entry to the hall, small smiles playing about their features as they watched him dotingly as he paused to look once more in each room. Ratchet could not trust his voice to stay steady, instead he only smiled at them, kissing them gently before grasping each of them by the hand and pulling them to the next hall. He left them at the entrance, letting them follow as they pleased. The first room was filled with paints, canvases and supplies for Sunstreaker's art. The second held ores and minerals complete with sorting trays and scales' for Side's constant tinkering in brewing new energon blends.

Ratchet gasped as he stepped before the next room down. It was a nursery. They had given him a nursery with a basinet waiting for a new spark. A chest of nutrient blends sat to one side, a custom energon dispenser with drawers for adding the nutrients younglings had to have in their energon. Ratchet's processors nearly crashed from the sudden near tangible epiphany that, yes, these two wanted younglings as much as he did. Ratchet swallowed tightly, optics shuttering as he barely restrained a keening sob of his overwhelming joy. He forced his intakes to cycle, made himself continue his silent, self-guided tour with his lovers behind him, undetected by any normal sense, but he knew he could reach back and touch them if he so desired.

Their presence allowed Ratchet to keep cycling vents that continually attempted to close. He looked to the room across the hall from the nursery, taking in the massive office lined with tomes and tools from Ratchet's dorm in the Healers' Collegia – the dorm room Ratchet had been kept from for one reason or another for the last two orns. For a very slight moment his weariness returned with the reminder that he had not slept in a normal berth for two orns while dealing with emergency repairs several mech's required following a collapse in the catacombs beneath the city.

With the many thousands of grays having raised from the dead the catacombs had been rendered too dangerous to approach, and now a massive reconstruction effort was underway to shore the underground from collapsing and taking the whole of the business district with it.

"Do you like it Ratch?" Sideswipe asked once more from behind, the red twin's voice filled with uncertainty at the prolonged silence.

Ratchet huffed and shook his head as he turned around, pulling the glass encased gelled rose. With a hesitant finger he traced the outline of the rose on the glass surface as doubts new and old filled his spark before finally looking up at his lovers. "I should turn the two of you into scrap for making me come all this way this late after two straight orns in the bay."

"Oh," Sunstreaker looked down at his hands, rubbing his arm uncomfortably, "No one would tell us where you were. They – they didn't know about _us_."

"Ratch, according to them, we were just – _fans_." Sideswipe looked to Ratchet miserably. "Why does – why aren't we worthy of anyone knowing who we are?"

Ratchet sighed, setting the rose on the massive desk. "I was afraid to tell anyone about us except for the collegium leaders. You two have been awake for less than a full season, you've only known me as the traveling healer. What if, after you see me working too hard, cussing everyone out, yelling at my students, and bringing my temper home, you decide I'm not good enough?"

The question had been plaguing him since he had started his rotation. He worked long hours, left sometimes for days. He returned filthy, exhausted and cranky. He had yelled at most of his staff already within his first week, what would happen when his temper turned on them?

"Living in darkness for so long before our imprisonment let us know when we found someone perfect." Sunstreaker muttered darkly. "We know what we're asking for!"

Ratchet shook his head, dragging his lovers from his office, across the hall to the nursery that sat silent and empty just waiting for a newspark. "Is this an empty promise?" He gestured to the scalloped bassinet, "Did you put these in here to make me believe you want sparklings? Or do you want younlings as much as I do?"

"Heh, we did everything for you, Ratch. When you and Chromia spoke of younglings, we wanted that, to see Ironhide play war-horsie with littles and Chromia behave like a giddy youngling herself with her first grand-spark." Sideswipe sighed and leaned against the door, optics downcast and dark.

"So," Ratchet looked to them forlornly, "How does an overly self-conscious, insensitive slagger say he's sorry?"

"He says sorry." Sunstreaker bit the words savagely, optics dark with hidden emotions.

Ratchet dropped his guise, letting his self recriminating, exhausted green optics meet their masked blue evenly. "I was afraid, I figured in this big city you two would have no trouble realizing you made a mistake when you chose me. I love you both, I always will. But, what if you didn't really love me? If you two had said that I wasn't good enough I wouldn't have been surprised."

Sideswipe rolled his optics to the ceiling just as Sunstreaker's hand slapped over his optics in exasperated disbelief, shaking his helm slowly. "Did you really think we berthed you out there all those times just to let you go now?" Sunstreaker demanded gesturing out the window to the no longer visible tree line, "Primus Ratch, we went over this in Crystal Spire. We love you. Us," he gestured with a finger between him and Sideswipe, "we love you. It's not the affects of some forsaken curse, not some load of slag we cooked up to keep you from letting us die! _We love you_!"

The last, nearly howled with desperation finally goaded Ratchet into action. Knowing words had failed him, he turned to the only options he had left. With a mental shove, he pushed at the section of his mind where he felt the nightwalkers' presence forcing his under demonstrated affection for them to shine like a beacon and drew Sunstreaker in for a deep, searing, demanding kiss.

Sideswipe was suddenly behind him, laving kisses along the back of Ratchet's neck pushing the healer as Sunstreaker pulled out of the nursery to the final door at the end of the hall. Reaching blindly behind him Sunstreaker opened the door letting the honey hued wood play in the flickering candle light. Ratchet startled from their heated encounter, froze, optics instead devouring the massive rooms that lay before him.

He found himself staring at a sitting room, several chairs facing a large hearth and a desk sat closest to the door, a wash room opened to one side with a massive tub and shower. Ratchet looked the room over, then spotted the enormous berth room appointed with a huge berth, several standing wardrobes and a small bookshelf empty save few a few knickknacks Ratchet had kept above his cot in the dorms. All this he took in one startled instant then once more pulled at the twins, drawing them towards the massive berth desperately needing to be broken in.

"Wait," Sunstreaker breathed, intakes hitching as he fought down his consuming desire for Ratchet. "Love, Ratchet?" He and Sideswipe each fell to one knee, each suddenly holding a small open box in their open left hands. In unison they spoke, each holding Ratchet's gaze intensely, "Bond with me? With us?"

Ratchet stared, breathless despite his impassioned panting as he looked at the ring each brother held. Sideswipe held a ring of palest silvery-white metal one side smooth and even, the other worked into spiraling filigree. Sunstreaker's was whitish-blue, nearly identical to the one in Sideswipe's grasp, and Ratchet gasped as his processors fitted the filigreed edges together making the two rings into one. He looked from one brother to the other, then to their rings and finally to look through the open door behind them to the massive home they had made for him here in his city.

They were silent, patient, optics bright and steady. Ratchet was grateful for their silence as he contemplated the consequences of saying no – and suddenly smiled a huge, massive smile as he remembered the harrowing days when his belief the pair had berthed him for bragging rights and left him to wake alone in a sticky berth came back. His belief that they had used him caused him to doubt his budding affections for them and nearly destroyed the hybrid nightwalker pair. "Yes," Ratchet finally accepted ecstatically, "Primus yes."

"We knew you would never leave us." Sideswipe stood fluidly, effortlessly rising to his peds as he slipped his silver ring onto Ratchet's right ring finger. Sunstreaker stood a moment after, slipping his ring on Ratchet's finger as well, interlinking their filigreed edges, making the two rings into one.

"Two halves of one spark." Ratchet smiled at the narrow band, before reaching out to the pair with lust-filled optics dark with desire. Yes, his spark was imperfect, filled with doubts and fears for what the future held. Yes, he held a silent kernel of angst that one orn they would be freed of the ancient curse and leave him for his imperfections. But, he also had this tiny, timid, fragile symbol that they would stay with him regardless. "I love this place. I love you both, _but _I am not bonding with you for at least a vorn."

"Please tell us that doesn't mean we have to be chaste with you _now_." Sunstreaker panted, optics darkly violent and seething with his desperate need for the healer.

"Frag no!" Ratchet clutched at the pair, glossa tangling with Sunstreaker's in a brief, intense kiss as his hands pulled at Sideswipe's tunic. "It just means that you have one vorn to make sure you're not signing up for the biggest mistake of your long lives. Because, trust me on this, Ironhide will not let you divorce me. It's either bond for life, or die and if he can't kill you, he'll banish you."

The twins smiled salaciously, optics flaring with desire, their hands stripping Ratchet then themselves, "That's not an issue." They spoke as one, their combined voice that strange tone that belonged to neither yet sounded like one mech speaking from two frames. Hearing their desire in that strange spark-voice that spoke for both of them as their chilly exvents gusted over him, Ratchet suddenly pulled Sideswipe into a strut-melting kiss, devouring the other's chill mouth as they tumbled onto the berth.

Sunstreaker watched his lover and brother for a few moments, relishing feeling Ratchet's affects on Sideswipe through their bond. The pair entwined interface arrays grinding desperately as their mouths devoured each other. Frames of white and red writhed together, Sideswipe laving his glossa along sensitive seams along Ratchet's frame as he slowly teased his way to the healer's interface plate.

As Sideswipe worked his glossa lower Ratchet writhed one hand clutching desperately at the thick bedding while the other reached out longingly to Sunstreaker, optics locked on the golden nightwalker, pleading the dark violet optics to join him. A hungry smirk spread across Sunstreaker's perfect features, the golden form stalking to Ratchet's side to claim the healer's perfect mouth.

Ratchet panted, thrashing in ecstasy as fingers rough and smooth pressed up inside his valve, stretching him with maddening slowness. He had lost track of his lovers, one sucked his spike, sending jolts of desire to thrum through his entire being. The other pressed light kisses and gentle fanged nips along his chassis, repeatedly biting and growling over his spark possessively.

"More," Ratchet pressed against the seeking fingers and near frigid mouth, needing something hotter, larger to bring him to completion. Around him, his lovers stilled before both sets of doting optics hovered over him.

"As you command," Sideswipe murmured huskily, kissing Ratchet with a cold, tender intensity as the many fingers in the healer's valve withdrew with exquisite slowness making Ratchet mewl and shiver into Sideswipe's mouth. Only to gasp as Sunstreaker slowly sank into the searing heat of the soaking, clutching channel.

Sunstreaker pressed himself intimately along Ratchet's back, placing chilled open mouth kisses along his shimmering hot neck as Sides slowly entered Ratchet, chest pressed impossibly close to the healer's. Panting, entwined, they held still letting Ratchet acclimate to their combined girth. Shuddering, pulling his lovers closer Ratchet suckled along Sideswipe's neck, his pelvis into his lovers urging them to move. Valve clenching, his lovers groaning in appreciation for the tight feel, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe slowly pulled out, making Ratchet writhe. Pausing, anticipating the brothers held perfectly still with just the heads of their spikes held barely within Ratchet throbbing valve, until their lover snarled for them to move, his optics bleeding a dark, dangerous green.

With Ratchet snarling at them, his guise of mortality finally fallen, Sunstreaker pistoned his hips back into Ratchet, his pace swift and brutal. Sideswipe smirked at his brother's impatience and moved slowly back within Ratchet, his movements a fluid glide that would slowly drive Ratchet into desperate desire. The pair bestowed kisses on Ratchet's plating as they moved, their hands stimulating his over-sensitive palms until the healer was heedless of anything but the burning heat that poured off of him and devoured his lovers.

Ratchet keened as their movements countered one another, his lovers always drove him to desperation once they discovered this, his impure weakness. Sunstreaker pistoning with delicious friction against the back wall of his valve while Sideswipe pulled slowly in and out against the front as they built slowly towards climax and keeping Ratchet from toppling through his. They countered each other perfectly. Ratchet keened, mewled and moaned peppering Sideswipe with kisses and nips urging him, begging him to speed up, to give him more of that intense friction he so desperately _needed_.

Ratchet could feel his overload building that exquisite precipice approaching too slowly. He knew what he needed, wanted and so did his lovers. They kept him shackled just at the edge making him threaten, plead, beg and whine until Sideswipe finally giving in sped up matching Sunstreaker's movements so that they moved in tandem.

"_Yes_," Ratchet hissed, back struts arching against Sunstreaker as the twin spikes within him finally felt like one. Thrusting harder, faster they drove the healer to climax, Ratchet shrieking his overload while his lovers continued to press desperately into him until they reached their own completion.

"Heh, he really was exhausted." Sideswipe smiled adoringly down on Ratchet's slack, slumbering face. Feeling sated and complete, Sunstreaker withdrew from Ratchet's still sopping and clenching valve only to cuddle closer to the white frame as Sideswipe did the same. Curled possessively around their lover – their betrothed – the brothers held him tightly, knowing they would not sleep this night as their hands entwined with his right one, black and golden fingers entwining with cherry red as they stared enraptured at the ring on his finger.

They did not need to sleep, and as the hours ticked away until sunrise they knew they could do this – holding Ratchet as he slept through the night – for all eternity. Behind their headboard, the window above them slowly brightened with dawn's first light. They watched Ratchet first shift, then snuggle tighter against them before his optics finally lit that hazy pale green they adored so much. As his groggy optics finally settled on them and lit affectionately the brothers knew they would lie here holding him for the rest of their long lives. Their entwined hands tightened around their lover's each smiling adoringly.

"We never did have that steamy shower scene." Sideswipe murmured as he nuzzled Ratchet tenderly.

Ratchet smiled sleepily, his optics tracking to their hands and the ring settled there, "It's time we fixed that." He rasped, "Later," and fell back to sleep.

The End


End file.
